Any MOU with Turkey raises serious legal and ethical
questions because it would recognize the Erdogan Government’s rights to “claw
back” cultural goods of “ethnically cleansed” Greek, Armenian and Assyrian populations.
Moreover, one or more CPAC members recently resigned over President Trump’s
tweet threatening Iranian cultural sites, and House Foreign Relations Chair
Elliot Engel—with the approval of archaeological advocacy groups supporting
this MOU—has introduced H.R. 795 that declares that, “the intentional targeting
or destruction of cultural property in the absence of imperative military
necessity is a violation of the law of armed conflict and runs counter to the values
of the United States.” Yet, the Erdogan
government has recently bombed an important Hittite site in Syria, flooded
ancient cities, and has even threatened to turn Justinian’s Great Patriarchal
Church, Hagia Sophia, from a museum into a mosque. These measures are the polar opposite of the “self-help”
obligations embedded in 19 U.S.C. § 2602 (a) (1) (b), and granting Erdogan a MOU will
only encourage him on his destructive path. As to coins, let me make the following points
for both MOU’s:
·
There
are large numbers of coin collectors and numismatic firms in the US. Most
collect out of love of history, as an expression of their own cultural identity,
or out of interest in other cultures.
All firms that specialize in ancient coins in the US are small
businesses.
·
The
brief of the State Department Bureau of Educational and Cultural affairs is to foster
people to people contacts and the appreciation of other cultures. It does so
with a huge budget of over $500 million. Ancient coin collecting fosters those
same goals, but at no cost to the US Taxpayer.
·
Yet,
since 2007, a series of grossly over broad import restrictions placed on common
ancient coins of the sort widely collected worldwide (including within most of
the countries for which import restrictions have been granted) have done quite
a bit of damage to ancient coin collecting.
·
Their
cumulative impact has been problematic because outside of some valuable Greek
coins, most coins simply lack the document trail necessary for legal import
under the “safe harbor” provisions of 19 U.S.C. § 2606.
·
Another
embargo, this time potentially impacting a wide variety of Greek, Carthaginian,
Roman Provincial, Roman and Byzantine coins struck or sometimes found in Turkey
and Tunisia, will bring even more damage. As set forth in IAPN's submissions,
there are many statutory reasons why this should not happen. Moreover, CPAC
also needs to consider whether import restrictions on coins are really
necessary, particularly because it appears that both Turkey and Tunisia allow
for the internal sale of ancient coins.
·
At
a minimum, CPAC should ensure that Customs only applies the CPIA as written to
items on the designated list exported
from the State Party after the effective date of regulations. (19 U.S.C. § 2606). Unfortunately, the State Department and
Customs view this authority far more broadly, and the one Court that has looked
at this issue decided to defer to that decision making on “foreign policy
grounds.” In particular, designated
lists have been prepared based on where coins are made and sometimes found, not
where they are actually found and hence are subject to export control. Furthermore, restrictions are not applied
prospectively solely to illegal exports made after the effective date of
regulations, but rather are enforced against any import into the U.S. made after
the effective date of regulations, i.e., an embargo, not targeted, prospective
import restrictions.
·
CPAC should also make any import restrictions
on coins contingent on the creation of a Portable Antiquities Scheme and the provision
of export permits. Turkey already pays
for finds in some circumstances and both Turkey and Tunisia already allow for
internal sales of ancient coins, which should make both programs possible under
local law. Thank you.
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