Practitioner’s insight - Certificates of Exportation of Cultural Property and Foreign Acceptance of Their Value

Abstract:
There are three aspects to consider when analysing cultural property crime:  (i) illegal exportation of a cultural good is a crime recognised in most legal systems; (ii) the division of countries into importers and exporters of cultural goods is no longer satisfactory; and (iii) countries cannot fight alone the trafficking of cultural items and should be working towards collaborative projects. This contribution investigates these three core aspects with a special  focus  on  the  involvement  of  organised  crime groups in the illegal acquisitions and exportation of cultural goods and related money laundering activities.

Keywords: Hard/soft norms – organised crime – money laundering – policing – certificate of export/import

Introduction
The offence of illegal exportation of a cultural good is a crime common to almost all the legal  systems,  since  almost  all  States  wish  to  protect  their  cultural  heritage,  even  if sometimes they fail to protect that of other States. Various jurisdictions have created regional areas of protection (such as the Commonwealth and the EU). While this can be traced back to historic and political reasons, the increasing presence of transnational criminals  exploiting  the  socalled  “safe haven”  countries  makes  this system  quite inefficient. As a consequence, it becomes very difficult to counter trafficking in artefacts and cultural goods and control this criminality.

The division of countries into “importers” and “exporters”of cultural goods is no longer satisfactory from both a theoretical and an empirical perspective. Cultural goods are now considered universal values that belong to all of humankind. Their decontextualisation damages everyone and not just the country of origin. [...]

See here for more information on the European Review of Organised Crime (EROC).