Stolen Works of Art > Conferences and meetings

Recommendations

The participants at the 2nd Meeting of the Interpol Expert Group (IEG) on Stolen Cultural Property, held in Lyon on 22 February 2005:

MINDFUL of the crucial importance of international legal instruments to fight efficiently the illicit traffic in cultural property;

AWARE of the benefits arising from close co-operation between national law enforcement agencies and cultural institutions,

RECOGNIZING the need of police and customs officers to have specific training concerning cultural property,

EMPHASIZING the need of national law enforcement agencies to have rapid access to information on stolen cultural property,

NOTING the need of national law enforcement agencies for acknowledged experts stating the origin and the authenticity of suspicious cultural property thought to come from Iraq,

RECOMMEND THAT:

1. Interpol member countries examine, with a view to accession, the 1954 Hague Convention and its first protocol, the 1970 UNESCO Convention, and the 1995 UNIDROIT Convention;
   
   
2. Interpol member countries intensify the co-operation between police services, customs administrations, and cultural institutions in order to increase the efficiency of the fight against the illicit trafficking in cultural property, including by means of specific training programmes on cultural-property matters;
   
   
3. Interpol National Central Bureaus provide police and customs agencies in their countries access to Interpol’s stolen art database through the new I-24/7 communications system once this database becomes available;
   
   
4. UNESCO makes available to Interpol and the World Customs Organization a list of experts and organizations that may be consulted by law enforcement agencies to determine the geographic origin and the authenticity of supposed Iraqi cultural property under investigation. The International Council of Museums will make suggestions for additions to the list whenever it deems appropriate;
   
   
5. The Interpol General Secretariat and the World Customs Organization make these lists available to the police and customs services of their member countries;
   
   
6. The International Council of Museums contacts the scientific community to encourage its co-operation in the fight against illicit traffic, and invites that community to contact Interpol and UNESCO when in doubt about the legal provenance of cultural property.