Let's Support Our Fellow Collectors in Germany!

As you may have already heard, draconian legislation is to be introduced in Germany that may greatly limit the legal trade in even common ancient and modern coins.  CPO hopes its readers will sign this petition not only to show our solidarity with German collectors, but to demonstrate our own commitment to coin collecting and the people to people contacts and cultural understanding it helps foster:   https://www.openpetition.de/petition/online/fuer-den-erhalt-des-privaten-sammelns

For more background, see here.

 Let's support our fellow collectors in Germany!

Legal Trade to Continue under HR 1493?

The House of Representatives has passed HR 1493 with some modifications that don't go anywhere near far enough to address the concerns raised about the legislation by the Committee for Cultural Policy and other groups.

The new bureaucracy created in the State Department will lack transparency.   Any "coordination" efforts will again ignore the concerns of collectors and the small businesses of the numismatic and antiquities trade.  Instead, the same insiders associated with the archaeological lobby who already dominate things will again be given free reign to help call the shots.

As for the "emergency" Syrian restrictions that are authorized in the legislation, the new "sunset" provision appears to be little more than an invitation for emergency restrictions to be a bridge to permanent ones.  The much needed provision for temporary imports of at risk Syrian cultural artifacts requires so many bureaucratic findings that it will likely never be used to save much from destruction at the hands of ISIS or Assad for that matter.  Indeed, nothing in this legislation precludes the State Department and US Customs from ultimately repatriating artifacts to the same odious Assad regime that has already engaged in looting in places like Apamea and Palmyra and which has bombed important cultural sites into dust.  That. of course, may be just fine with at least some in the archaeological lobby which generally has been unwilling to criticize the Assad regime despite its looting and destruction of Syrian cultural property. 

On the bright side, before the bill was voted on in the House, Representatives Chabot and Engel both emphasized that the legislation was not meant to target the lawful trade in Syrian artifacts and only authorizes import restrictions on artifacts illegally removed from Syria after the start of its civil war.

However, assuming HR 1493 becomes law, it remains to be seen whether the State Department and Customs and Border Protection will follow this bipartisan Congressional direction or revert back to their standard operating procedure: Create as broad a designated list of items with a "country of origin" (manufacture) of Syria as is possible and then assume that anything of a similar "type" is illicit unless proven otherwise.   Of course, this kind of "guilty" until "proven innocent" mentality may be contrary to the plain meaning of the Cultural Property Implementation Act, 19 USC Sections 2601, 2604 and 2610 as well as our great Anglo-American legal traditions, but it is quite in keeping with the "ends justifies the means" attitude of the State Department's Cultural Heritage Center, CBP and the "archaeological lobby," all of which already "coordinate" quite well with or without this legislation.

ISIS Iconclasm a Mere Cover Story for Looting?

So says an Iraqi official based on unnamed sources.  But Iraqi sources were also the basis for the now widely discredited claim that ISIS has netted $36 million from one site in Syria alone. 

So, is this new claim as well as other unsupported claims that there must be warehouses full of material looted by ISIS to be believed?  Or, is it possible that ISIS came up with far more "dry holes" than artifacts to be put into "cold storage?"

If the 2003 Iraq war proved anything, it was that "experts" could be dead wrong not only on the existence of weapons of mass destruction, but on the nature and extent of looting.  So caution should be warranted-- particularly where such information is being used to justify the creation of a new State Department bureaucracy and new import restrictions on all things "Syrian."

Meanwhile, on the ground in Syria, Palmyra, another UNESCO World Heritage site, is under threat of capture by ISIS.  What is needed is not more talk or even legislation, but concrete action to save the city from ISIS or at least a cost to pay for anyone who seeks to destroy its ruins.

More Transparency and Inclusion Needed

The well-funded and well-connected Antiquities Coalition has helped promote and organize  conferences at the Smithsonian and in Cairo to address the problem of looting in times of civil unrest and war.

Unfortunately, the conferences-- like HR 1493, legislation the archaeological lobby is promoting to address these same issues-- rely on flawed assumptions:

1.  That state ownership and control over everything "old" is justified because nation states are always the best stewards of cultural artifacts;

2.  That the only groups that "count" are governments, law enforcement, archaeologists and state sponsored museums; and

3.  That panels of experts representing these same interests, blog posts, press releases and articles meant to shape public opinion can substitute for transparent decision making.

Here, if anything, the Egyptian Generals' sponsorship of the Cairo conference and the unclear nature of the Antiquities Coalition's relationship with the Egyptian Government should give some pause.  Let's stipulate that members of the Antiquities Coalition and the other participants of these conferences are all deeply committed to preserving cultural heritage, but that does not mean that legitimate questions should not be raised about this endeavor.

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.