Cultural Property Advisory Committee Meeting, February 4-6, 2025; New MOU for Vietnam; Renewals for Chile, Italy and Morocco

 In what has become a holiday “tradition,” the State Department has provided advance notice of an upcoming Cultural Property Advisory Committee meeting on Feb. 4-5, 2025.

 The meeting will cover a proposed new cultural property MOU with Vietnam as well as renewals for Chile, Italy, and Morocco.  The advanced notice can be found here:

https://eca.state.gov/highlight/cultural-property-advisory-committee-meeting-february-4-6-2025

 Coin collectors and others should be particularly concerned if as has been the case in several recent renewals, that the renewal with Italy could be used as an opportunity to apply new restrictions to items of more recent vintage.  

Hopefully, the renewal of the MOU with Italy will not be used to expand the current designated list  to additional coin issues, particularly those of the late Republic and Roman Empire.  The current MOU with Italy does not include Roman Republican coins post 211 BC or or any Roman Imperial coins, but recently the State Department imposed restrictions on such coins on behalf of Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Ukraine, despite the lack of evidence many are found there.  

The numbers of such coins found in Italy are also relatively small compared to those found elsewhere.  Additionally, there is a huge legal internal market in Italy itself which undercuts any claim that import restrictions will lessen demand for "looted" material.  

The real issue of course is that US Customs takes the position that the mere placement of coin types on the designated list is sufficient for Customs to "assume' they were illicitly exported from a particular country absent specific evidence to the contrary.  Of course, such an assumption has no factual basis behind it, but to date courts have been unwilling to question State Department and Customs discretion in this area.   

Moreover, coin collectors and the general art trade should be concerned about another recent trend, imposing restrictions on everything and anything identifiable as being produced or used by a given culture down to 1774 for “archaeological objects” and even more recently for “ethnological objects” which have included paintings, most recently for Ukraine.  See https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2024/09/10/2024-20385/emergency-import-restrictions-imposed-on-categories-of-archaeological-and-ethnological-material-of

Such restrictions place embargoes on anything and everything ever made or used in a given country despite the negative impacts such restrictions have on legitimate trade and cultural exchange.  

Here are the relevant dates:

January 27, 2025- All written comments and requests to speak due.

February 5, 2025 @ 1 PM- Public meeting.

CPO will provide updates about this CPAC hearing, once the regulations.gov starts accepting comments.  Hopefully, there will also be further clarity if  there will be a move to expand current restrictions under the MOU with Italy to more recent "Italian" material.