Скачать или смотреть Protecting Cultural Property: Thorbjørn Jagland, Council of Europe Secretary General

High-level representatives from international organisations and national governments, as well as academic experts, met in Strasbourg on 13 January 2017 for a colloquy to strengthen cooperation to protect cultural heritage from wanton destruction and preventing the illicit trafficking of cultural goods.

Keynote speakers included Ioannis Kasoulides, the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Cyprus, Irina Bokova, Director-General of UNESCO and Mammoun Abdulkarim, the Director-General of the Directorate General of Antiquities and Museums in Syria and Fatou Bensouda, Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court. Also addressing the event were Hans-Holger Herrnfeld, Chair of the Committee on Offences relating to Cultural Heritage, and Anna Veneziano, the Deputy Secretary-General of UNIDROIT.

Organised jointly by the Cypriot chairmanship of the Council of Europe’s Committee of Ministers and its Secretary General, Thorbjørn Jagland, the event focused on the illicit excavation, sale and acquisition of cultural property, which has become a lucrative trade often linked to cross-border organised crime and terrorism. Notably in Iraq and Syria, Daesh has been plundering the region’s cultural heritage, deliberately destroying important archeological sites such as Palmyra and profiting from the sale of valuable stolen artefacts.

The Council of Europe is currently preparing a new Convention on Offences related to Cultural Property, which will become the only international treaty focusing on criminal measures and sanctions on illicit activities in the field of cultural heritage.
More information: http://bit.ly/2jjYoPM