is a prototype for a semi-interactive database of cultural property laws. In the interest of size, it has been restricted solely to the US, Guatemala and Greece. What this means that the purpose of this wiki is to help someone without a legal degree to understand the laws governing the transport of cultural property between these nations. This may include a potential collector, an archaeologist, a museum curator or gallery owner with an object that they would either like to import/export or suspect that it may have been imported illegally from its country of origin. This may be an especially useful tool for students to study an discuss cultural property laws as they evolve.

This wiki is unique in the way that it abstracts the laws for the reader, as well as combines online legal codes, hardcopy legal codes and news articles to make a cohesive study of the law that lends itself to practical use. This in contrast the the International Cultural Property Protection page run by the State Department, which gives onilne copies of all major U.S. federal legislation, or The National Stolen Art File of the FBI, which is a database purely for the purpose of tracking stolen art. This page is designed to facilitate understanding by someone without a professional legal background in making an informed study of cultural property importation or exportation.

The articles themselves are designed to present concise, easy to understand background pieces on federal and state laws of the U.S., the bilateral trade agreements between the U.S. and other countries, and the laws that define and restrict importation of cultural property in countries other than the U.S. With the interest of promoting a better interaction with this information, the wiki is an adaptable document, to allow students or interested parties to add their links or articles on cultural property issues as new information is found, or important cases are decided.

The interactive component of this wiki is as important as the data that it already possesses. Users are encouraged to link articles or update information on the wiki concerning new issues of patrimony or cultural property that have recently arisen, or to provide better translations of non-English documents that may aid in the pursuit of due diligence as it pertains to knowledge of the law.

To this end, these three pages below will serve as a starting point to provide a forum for the discussion of data and how it applies to someone who needs to know how to legally import an object across the border.

• What is Cultural Property?
• What are considered illicit goods?
• How do you import goods legally?

National Laws

References

Links