scholarly journals Reality and Practicality: Challenges to Effective Cultural Property Policy on the Ground in Latin America

2015 ◽  
Vol 22 (2-3) ◽  
pp. 337-356 ◽  
Author(s):  
Donna Yates
Keyword(s):  
Latin America ◽  
Case Studies ◽  
Developing World ◽  
Cultural Property ◽  
Illicit Trade ◽  
Effective Policy ◽  
Regulatory Development ◽  
Source Countries

Abstract:Although on-the-ground preservation and policing is a major component of our international efforts to prevent the looting and trafficking of antiquities, the expectation placed on source countries may be beyond their capacity. This dependence on developing world infrastructure and policing may challenge our ability to effectively regulate this illicit trade. Using case studies generated from fieldwork in Belize and Bolivia, this paper discusses a number of these challenges to effective policy and offers some suggestions for future regulatory development.

scholarly journals Reality and Practicality: Challenges to Effective Cultural Property Policy on the Ground in Latin America

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Donna Yates
Keyword(s):  
Latin America ◽  
Developing World ◽  
Cultural Property ◽  
Illicit Trade ◽  
Effective Policy ◽  
Source Countries

Although on-the-ground preservation and policing is a majorcomponent of our international efforts to prevent the looting and traffickingof antiquities, the expectation placed on source countries may be beyond theircapacity. This dependence on developing world infrastructure and policing maychallenge our ability to effectively regulate this illicit trade. Using case studiesgenerated from fieldwork in Belize and Bolivia, this paper discusses a numberof these challenges to effective policy and offers some suggestions for futureregulatory development.

The ethics of art dealing

1998 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 116-127 ◽  
Author(s):  
P Marks
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
Cultural Property ◽  
Archaeological Sites ◽  
Ethical Standards ◽  
Export Controls ◽  
Illicit Trade ◽  
Legal Standards ◽  
Unesco Convention ◽  
Private And Public ◽  
Source Countries

The ethics of dealing in antiquities may be discussed in two parts: first, the ethical standards that govern the trade and its relation to clients, and second, the new legal standards that affect dealers and collectors arising from political ambitions in the international relations between source and market nations. Friction between these competing interests began with the ratification of the UNESCO Convention in 1972 and the passage of the Cultural Property Implementation Act in 1983. Unrealistic political approaches to the illicit trade in antiquities have exacerbated rather than solved the problem. A resolution of the conflicts, contradictions, and ambiguities of the present situation can be achieved by stressing the safety of objects and archaeological sites over partisan goals. A satisfactory denouement can be achieved through a partnership between source countries and the market, through an abandonment of retentionist export controls, and through the establishment of an open, free, and rational coalition. Any solution to present difficulties ought to acknowledge the value of continuing to collect and preserve antiquities in private and public collections.

Trafficking in Cultural PropertyWhere Cultural Heritage Law and the International Fight Against Transnational Organized Crime Coincide

2020 ◽  
pp. 157-180
Author(s):  
Janet Blake
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Heritage ◽  
Organized Crime ◽  
Critical Analysis ◽  
The United States ◽  
Cultural Property ◽  
Transnational Organized Crime ◽  
Cultural Objects ◽  
Illicit Trade ◽  
Unesco Convention ◽  
Source Countries

The loss of their cultural treasures through illicit excavation, illegal export, and trafficking and the associated harm to national identity and the rights of their citizens presents a major challenge to many countries around the world. The source countries tend, on the whole, to be poorer developing States while the importing market countries are rich States such as the United States, United Kingdom, Germany, Japan, and Switzerland. This chapter first provides a critical analysis of the international cultural heritage law governing this question, in particular the 1970 UNESCO Convention on Illicit Trade in Cultural Property and the 1995 UNIDROIT Convention on the Return of Stolen and Illegally Exported Cultural Objects. Following this discussion, and as a contrast to the purely cultural heritage-based approach, it focuses on two complementary efforts to combat cultural property trafficking as an international or transnational crime: the 2000 ‘Palermo’ UN Convention Against Transnational Organized Crime and the 2017 ‘Nicosia’ Convention on Offences Relating to Cultural Property.

scholarly journals Keeping the Barbarians at the Gates: The Promise of the UNESCO and UNIDROIT Conventions for Developing Countries

2020 ◽  
pp. 581
Author(s):  
Michael Goodyear
Keyword(s):  
Developing Countries ◽  
United Nations ◽  
Cultural Property ◽  
International Institute ◽  
Art World ◽  
International Treaties ◽  
International Treaty ◽  
Illicit Trade ◽  
Cultural Organization ◽  
Source Countries

The illicit trade in cultural property is a global phenomenon, powered by criminal networks and smuggling trains that sacrifice local culture for the black market of the art world. Headlines featuring the Islamic State’s lucrative exchange in stolen cultural property, among other incidents, have raised the profile of the illicit cultural property trade on the global stage. Developing countries, as the most prominent source countries of cultural property, are particularly at risk. Existing scholarship has searched for a solution to this crisis, suggesting a new international treaty to protect cultural property or recommending the utilization of adjacent legal fields. However, these solutions overlook the ready benefits of two existing international treaties on cultural property, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (“UNESCO”) and United Nations International Institute for the Unification of Private Law (“UNIDROIT”) Conventions. While the UNESCO and UNIDROIT Conventions do not provide an absolute solution to the illicit cultural property trade, they are accessible and underutilized options that are particularly calibrated to assist developing countries. Increased ratification of the UNESCO and UNIDROIT Conventions would grant source country States Parties the enforcement benefits of the import regulations and domestic court systems of market country States Parties, and the strength of the Conventions would rise as the number of signatories increases. The costs imposed on developing country signatories are deliberately low to aid them in protection and recovery. Furthermore, the adoption of these two Conventions does not constrain States Parties from contemplating and implementing additional mechanisms to further protect cultural property. The UNESCO and UNIDROIT Conventions thus offer ready, underutilized options for developing countries to better protect their cultural property.

scholarly journals Illicit Cultural Property from Latin America: Looting, Trafficking, and Sale

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Donna Yates
Keyword(s):  
Latin America ◽  
Latin American ◽  
Human Migration ◽  
Cultural Property ◽  
Sacred Art ◽  
Cultural Objects ◽  
Illicit Trade ◽  
Future Policy ◽  
Antiquities Trafficking ◽  
The Church

This chapter will provide a broad overview of the the , smuggling, and illegal sale of cultural objects from Latin America. First, I will describe the two categories of Latin American cultural property covered by this chapter (pre-Conquest artefacts, colonial sacred art), and then consider the form and functioning of the illicit trade in Latin American antiquities. I will discuss the on-the-ground devastation of the historic trade in looted Latin American objects and present a model of a historic antiquities trafficking network. is will be illustrated by two case studies: the the and trafficking of a large Maya sculpture from the site of Machaquilá, Guatemala, and of the Church of Challapampa, Peru. Thee paper will close with a brief recommendation and an outline of the various outside forces that appear to play a significant role in the continued looting and trafficking of Latin American cultural objects. Among these important forces to consider are deforestation, human migration, the narcotics trade, local and regional instability, community insecurity, poverty, globalization, and developmental disparities. If reducing the illicit trade in Latin American cultural property is our goal, then all current and future policy must address these issues.

Testing the Causal Mechanisms in Additional Cases

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul D. Kenny
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Latin America ◽  
Case Studies ◽  
Democratic Party ◽  
Party System ◽  
Liberal Democratic Party ◽  
System Stability ◽  
Relative Autonomy ◽  
Causal Mechanisms ◽  
Liberal Democratic

Case studies of Indonesia and Japan illustrate that party-system stability in patronage democracies is deeply affected by the relative autonomy of political brokers. Over the course of a decade, a series of decentralizing reforms in Indonesia weakened patronage-based parties hold on power, with the 2014 election ultimately being a contest between two rival populists: Joko Widodo and Subianto Prabowo. Although Japan was a patronage democracy throughout the twentieth century, the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) remained robust to outsider appeals even in the context of economic and corruption crises. However, reforms in the 1990s weakened the hold of central factional leaders over individual members of the LDP and their patronage machines. This was instrumental to populist Junichiro Koizumi’s winning of the presidency of the LDP and ultimately the prime ministership of Japan. This chapter also reexamines canonical cases of populism in Latin America.

scholarly journals The Smuggling of Art, and the Art of Smuggling: Uncovering the Illicit Trade in Cultural Property and Antiques

2009 ◽  
Vol 1 (3) ◽  
pp. 82-96 ◽  
Author(s):  
Raymond Fisman ◽  
Shang-Jin Wei
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Western Country ◽  
Cultural Property ◽  
Illicit Trade ◽  
Reporting Incentives ◽  
Highly Correlated ◽  
Rich Countries ◽  
Illicit Trafficking

We empirically analyze the illicit trade in cultural property and antiques, taking advantage of different reporting incentives between source and destination countries. We generate a measure of illicit trafficking in these goods by comparing imports recorded in United States' customs data and the (purportedly identical) trade recorded by customs authorities in exporting countries. This reporting gap is highly correlated with corruption levels of exporting countries. This correlation is stronger for artifact-rich countries. As a placebo test, we do not observe any such pattern for US imports of toys. We report similar results for four other Western country markets. (JEL F14, K42, Z11, Z13)

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