Should There be Import Restrictions on Stolen Artifacts (from Syria)? (H.R. 1493)

What is H.R. 1493?

(Updated September 14, 2017)

This bill was enacted on May 9, 2016

This bill would create a Coordinator position (within the Dept. of State) for International Cultural Property Protection. They would be responsible for coordinating and promoting federal efforts to address international cultural property protection activities. A Coordinating Committee on international cultural property protection would be established to help the Coordinator’s work.

The President would be directed to apply import restrictions covering archaeological or ethnological material from Syria. These restrictions would treat Syria as if it were a party to an international agreement aimed at stopping the illegal import, export, and transfer of ownership of cultural property. Specifically, it would apply to historically or culturally important items that left Syria on or after March 15, 2011.

Any agency involved in international cultural property protection also get help in their efforts (temporarily) from the Smithsonian Institution. The Coordinator would be at the Assistant Secretary level of the State Department or higher, and would serve in both capacities at the same time.

Argument in favor

The people who would import this property are doing so for selfish reasons. Cultural property has the most significance to the people whose culture created it, and they should be able to keep it.

Argument opposed

When an area is thrown into upheaval and instability because of war, it can lead to the destruction of cultural property. It’d be better for future generations that it is sold or transferred overseas than no longer exist.

Impact

People who would import cultural property from Syria, federal agencies involved in prohibiting these transactions, the State Department, the Coordinator and the Coordinating Committee, the President.

Cost of H.R. 1493

The CBO estimates that implementing this bill would cost less than $500,000 over the 2016-2020 period. The restriction on importing materials from Syria that are culturally or historically significant would result in revenue loss of an additional $500,000 over the 2016-2025 period.

Additional Info

Of Note: ISIS has destroyed numerous culturally significant artifacts in Syria, Iraq, and Libya including churches, mosques, shrines, ancient sites, and artifacts in museums as it has expanded its influence in the Middle East. The ancient Roman ruins at Palmyra in Syria — a UNESCO World Heritage Site — have been threatened by ISIS since May 2015. In late August 2015 ISIS destroyed a major temple at Palmyra known as the Temple of Bel.

The import restriction imposed by this bill on cultural property from Syria is very similar to an existing restricting imports of cultural property from Iraq, enacted in 2008. That restriction covered ceramics, stone, metal, glass, ivory, bone, shell, textile, paper, parchment, wood, and paintings — but did allow for imports that were accompanied by documentation showing that it left Iraq prior to August 6, 1990.

A Hollywood film weighed in on the theft of cultural property with The Monuments Men, which focused on cultural artifacts stolen by the Nazis and efforts by the Allies to retrieve the items, and was loosely based on a non-fiction book.

Media:

• Sponsoring Rep. Eliot Engel (D-NY) Press Release
• House Committee on Foreign Affairs Press Release
• CBO Cost Estimate
• Observer
• Society for American Archaeology (In Favor)
• New York Times (Context)
  

Summary by Eric Revell
(Photo Credit: "Temple of Bel, Palmyra, Syria - 3" by James Gordon from Los Angeles, California, USA - Temple of Bel, Palmyra, Syria. Licensed under CC BY 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons)