US-Greek Bilateral Cultural Property Agreement Enters into Force

With an exchange of diplomatic notes on November 21, 2011, the agreement to protect Greece’s cultural heritage, which Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and then Minister of Foreign Affairs Stavros Lambrinidis signed on July 17, 2011, entered into force.

On December 1, 2011, Federal Register published the final rule on import restrictions imposed on certain Archaeological and ethnological materials from Greece. The report was approved by the commissioner of the U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) under the Department of Homeland Security and the Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Department of the Treasury.

The designated list of material encompassed in import restrictions includes, for example, archaeological material from many periods, styles, and cultures (Upper Paleolithic, Neolithic, Minoan, Cycladic, Helladic, Mycenaean, Submycenaean, Geometric, Orientalizing, Archaic, Classical, Hellenistic, Roman, and Byzantine). It also explains what types of items are suspect — stone sculptures, monuments, reliefs, furniture, vessels, tools and weapons, seals and beads; metal sculpture, personal ornaments, vessels and coins; various ceramics; items made of bone, ivory, glass, textiles, papyrus and others.

The agreement will strengthen and enhance collaboration to reduce looting and trafficking of antiquities, and provide for their return to Greece. It also aims to further the international interchange of such materials for cultural, educational, and scientific purposes. The agreement builds on the United States’ long-term commitment to cultural preservation and is consistent with a recommendation of the Cultural Property Advisory Committee, administered by the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs.

This cooperation between the United States and Greece is possible within the framework of the 1970 UNESCO Convention to reduce the pillage of cultural heritage sites. Through special enabling legislation, the U.S. Department of State implements the 1970 UNESCO Convention on the Means of Prohibiting and Preventing the Illicit Import, Export and Transfer of Ownership of Cultural Property.