UNESCO: Countries share good practices to combat illicit trafficking of cultural property

UNESCO hosted the Fifth Meeting of States Parties and Seventh Session of the Subsidiary Committee of the 1970 Convention against illicit cultural property trafficking, 20-23 May 2019, bringing together governments, art-market representatives, police, customs, lawyers and museum directors to share practices.

Canada, China, Estonia, Greece, Guatemala, Italy, Lithuania, Mexico, Morocco, Nigeria, Pakistan, South Korea, South Africa and Tunisia presented national approaches — Canada cited import/export controls and trained customs officials as having enabled the return of roughly 23,000 objects to 14 countries, including Jordan (2018) and Iraq (2019). Nine new members joined the Subsidiary Committee: Algeria, Benin, China, Ecuador, Iran, Lebanon, the Netherlands, Russia and Slovakia, focusing on due diligence, art-market cooperation, and judicial/public awareness (Mexico cited new university training modules; Libya cited school-museum partnerships).

INTERPOL, UNIDROIT, ICOM and the World Customs Organization stressed international cooperation and law-enforcement training; restitution of stolen objects was slated for the next States Parties meeting agenda.