After 50 years, battle to protect culture continues

Next year marks the 50th anniversary of the UNESCO's 1970 Convention on the Means of Prohibiting and Preventing the Illicit Import, Export and Transfer of Ownership of Cultural Property.

Lazare Eloundou Assomo, deputy director of the division for heritage and the UNESCO World Heritage Centre, said the agency will continue to review challenges and share good practices.

"The world is evolving, there are new issues, and cooperation and partnership are absolutely important," Assomo said." (The anniversary) will be a good opportunity to reflect for all the UNESCO member states who have signed the convention and also look at how to better cooperate with all partners,... some of the important subjects we will be discussing will pave the way for the next 50 years."

To date, 140 nations have ratified the convention.

Cultural property is deemed to be anything of scientific, historical, artistic, or religious significance. But the convention notes that every state can define its own cultural property, as long as the item is of importance to it.

'A human right'

Emiline Smith, a lecturer in art crime and criminology at the University of Glasgow, said such items are important to nations' identity.

"Certain social values, belief systems, and traditions are passed on from generation to generation, and cultural heritage is proof of this: a reflection of human civilization," she said. "Most countries have indicated certain objects that they deem most valuable to be national cultural heritage. .. Making, owning, preserving culture and cultural heritage is a human right."

Intergovernmental committees meet every year to review problems related to illicit trafficking around the world.

Assomo stressed that UNESCO cannot act alone and noted that cooperating with the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, the International Police Organization, customs services, the private sector, and museums is key to protecting cultural heritage.

One major concern for UNESCO is the phenomenon of terrorist groups exploiting cultural sites to finance their activities while strengthening links with transnational organized crime.

Smith said some such groups are using attacks on cultural heritage "as a strategy to undermine national governments and intimidate local populations".

"In some cases, the looting and destruction of cultural heritage have been found to generate income for terrorist groups to extend their operations, for example in Iraq and Syria," she said. "They know that there is a market for the art and antiquities that they sell."

As part of international peace-building efforts, the UN Security Council adopted resolution 2347 in 2017, which aims to strengthen international cooperation to deprive terrorists of funding and to protect cultural heritage.

The resolution encourages member states to take preventive steps through documentation and consolidation of their nationally owned cultural property in a network of "safe havens".

There is also a need to ramp up the fight trafficking in the global art market. According to UNESCO, Europe is reportedly the largest exporter of art and antiquities, and the second-largest importer.

UNESCO acknowledges that, while most of the estimated $14.6 billion European trade is licit or "clean", there is no doubt that the art trade can fall victim to organized crime, money laundering and terrorist financing as a means for generating illicit proceeds.