Congressional Appropriators Hold State Department, CPAC and Source Countries Accountable

The House of Representatives has used the appropriations process to highlight the need for the State Department and the Cultural Property Advisory Committee to hold countries with MOUs with the United States accountable for spending adequate sums to protect their own cultural patrimony as a precondition for receiving continued US assistance.  For more, see here.  It's long past time for such a message to be sent.  If source countries are poor stewards for what they already have, why repatriate more objects under the misapprehension they will be properly studied, preserved and displayed?

Progress on HR 1493

The Senate Foreign Relations Committee has passed a much modified version of HR 1493, a bill designed to protect cultural property in times of war and civil strife.  The Senate's version of the bill is not yet available on-line, but CPO has had an opportunity to review its provisions.  Most importantly, the Senate substitute legislation replaces a controversial State Department "Cultural Property Czar" found in the House version with a sense of Congress that the President should establish an inter-agency task force to coordinate a US Government response to protecting international cultural property in times of war or civil strife.  The bill authorizes import restrictions on Syrian cultural artifacts-- consistent with the provisions of the Convention on Cultural Property Implementation Act, but also strengthens provisions for "safe harbor" for Syrian artifacts compared to the House version of the bill.

HR 1493's sponsor, Ranking Minority House Foreign Relations Committee Member Congressman Elliot Engel,  has welcomed the Senate's actions.  So, CPO suspects the Senate's changes were likely worked out in advance with Engel and his staff. If true, that should help expedite passage of the measure and any House-Senate conference.

The major remaining concern deals with how such restrictions will be implemented.  Will the State Department and US Customs revert to standard operating procedure and restrict items solely based on them being of a type manufactured in Syria hundreds or thousands of years ago? Or will the governing UN Resolution and statutory intent be honored so that restrictions only apply to artifacts illegally removed from Syria after the start of its civil war?

2/10/16 Update:  The text of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee version of the bill is now available here.

Byzantine

Is a good way to describe the cultural property laws a Greek numismatist must deal with for the private foundation where he works to add Byzantine and other coins to its collection.   At least the politically connected KIKPE Numismatic Collection is designated a "collector" under Greek law. That allows them to do more than merely "possess" the coins they own.

One would hope that efforts to cut down on choking regulation-- which have been discussed in Greece as a much needed remedy to open up its moribund economy to growth-- would carry over to "cultural property issues."  However, the archaeological lobby and the cultural bureaucracy are probably too entrenched to make that possible.

Indeed, it would appear, if anything, based on red tape creating legislative proposals in Germany and the United States that the trend is in the opposite direction.  CPO strongly believes that such added layers of bureaucracy and over regulation do little, or nothing, to protect archaeology as claimed, but much to undercut legitimate cultural exchange and the study and appreciation of coins and other artifacts that comes with it.

CCP Raises Concerns about HR 5703

The Committee for Cultural Policy has written responsible members of Congress expressing concerns about HR 5703, a bill that purports to protect and preserve international cultural property.

According to the letter,

Unfortunately HR 5703 as written is likely to make a bad situation even worse.  The bill assumes cultural property may be “saved” by repatriating it back to unstable, war torn nations without conditions. Blind application of these remedies may well lead to such miscarriages of justice as the seizure of Jewish and Christian religious artifacts from refugees and return of that property to the very instigators of their persecution.   The bill calls for a White House coordinator, but that coordinator will only consult with academics and foreign governments thereby ensuring even greater damage to the legitimate trade and, as a result, the American Public. The bill also provides the State Department permanent grant making authority without requiring any transparency or analysis of potential conflicts.  This is particularly troubling because many of the bill’s supporters stand to gain financially or professionally from such grants. The bill also bypasses the Cultural Property Advisory Committee and its recommendations based on the 1983 Convention on Cultural Property Implementation Act which thoughtfully balances the needs for cultural property protection in situations precisely like those we face currently in Syria.  Finally the Bill does nothing to resolve the inherent conflict between DOJ’s selective application of untested foreign ownership laws against US parties and DOS’s sloppy administration of the CCPIA.  In fact, the bill makes this worse by setting an arbitrary date for determination of illegality and giving DOJ broad powers to question any and all objects already in the US without establishing any safe harbor for legitimately acquired objects.

The CCP has also analyzed the bill further here.