National and International efforts to combat illicit trafficking Peoples’ cultural property

Abstract

Throughout history people left behind them a cultural, material and moral legacy reflect their identity and civilization. Such cultural and civilizational heritage is an evidence of the long history of peoples and their practices in the past years of history. Due to the importance of this cultural heritage, which is expressed by the term cultural property of the people, the issue of protecting and conserving them from any prejudice has gained the priority concern of the international community. Perhaps the most important images of the prejudice to these cultural properties are the illicit trafficking. So the international community confronted to this phenomenon recognizing that cultural property in general do not constitute a product or belong to a particular people itself, but is a common heritage of humanity as a whole. In this sense the international community has made significant efforts in combating illicit trafficking Peoples’ cultural property which is not only a phenomenon, but is a crime in every sense of the word, and this is what has been emphasized at the international level to consider illicit trafficking Peoples’ cultural property as an organized crime. Taking the advantage of the United Nations Convention on transnational organized crime to prosecute the perpetrators of this crime by expanding the scope of this Convention to include the new crimes, including illicit trafficking in cultural property. It was also stressed on criminalizing illicit trafficking of cultural property in the national legislation whether the penal legislations or those related to the protection of national antiquities. This along with various efforts has been made on the level of international organizations and bodies in order to combat this crime. In this research we will look at these efforts to combat illicit trafficking in cultural property through three sections, the first to introduce illicit trafficking Peoples’ cultural property, and the second is dedicated to the efforts of combating the illicit trafficking in cultural property on the international scale, and the third to deal with efforts to combat the illicit trafficking in cultural property on the national scale.