On March 25, 2019 Antiquities Coalition Founder and Chairman Deborah Lehr participated in a webinar with Trinity University, moderated by Dr. Mark Garrison, Alice P. Brown Distinguished Professor of Art & Art History. Lehr shared her important work and insights regarding cultural racketeering and the sale of antiquities to finance terrorism. Lehr highlighted the impact of cultural destruction on local communities and the repercussions of the illicit trade of antiquities worldwide. We thank Trinity University for the opportunity to speak about our organization’s mission and work. You can watch the full program below.

On March 8, scholars and practitioners from around the United States and the world came together at the University of Georgia School of Law for a daylong conference on “The International Criminal Court and the Community of Nations.”

The Antiquities Coalition was a honored to participate in this event, which explored challenges now facing the ICC, as well as the role of parties, nonparty states, non-state stakeholders, and inherited communities. The seminar included presentations from leading experts, as well as panel discussions, and a video address from Fatou Bensouda, the ICC Prosecutor. It was organized by the Dean Rusk International Law Center, as well as the Georgia Journal of International and Comparative Law.

Tess Davis, Executive Director of the Antiquities Coalition, and herself a graduate of the law school, spoke about why cultural heritage should be considered a stakeholder in international criminal law and before the ICC. She noted that the Antiquities Coalition has long commended the ICC for its important work to end impunity for atrocity crimes involving cultural heritage, and has also called upon the United Nations Security Council to refer additional cases to the court, especially attacks by Daesh (ISIS) against the people of Iraq and their heritage. However, she also stressed that there is much the global community can—and should—still do to prevent, investigate, and prosecute crimes against culture.

Key takeaways included:

• Cultural Racketeering and Destruction Is a Threat to World Heritage and Global Security: Culture has always been used as a weapon of war, but increasingly it is also being used as a criminal, insurgent, and terrorist financing tool. Daesh has made headlines for its highly developed antiquities trade, but some of the worst actors of the last century have also profited from stealing and smuggling art. This is a problem that predates, and will outlive, Daesh.
• Plunder and Destruction Go Hand In Hand: Confusing the situation is the fact that many of the same groups that are now financing their operations through the illicit antiquities trade are also targeting cultural, historic, and religious sites for destruction. These cultural attacks may be used to intimidate—or even erase—local enemies and can also make for dangerous propaganda. Such cultural destruction can be an atrocity crime in and of itself, as well as a warning sign of impending crimes against humanity, war crimes, and genocide.
• Cultural Racketeering and Destruction Is a Violation of International Law: Both cultural plunder and destruction, absent military necessity, are prohibited and even criminalized by the general provisions of international humanitarian law dealing with civilian property, including the law of Geneva, the law of the Hague, and customary international law. The 1954 Hague Convention and its two Protocols, the 1977 Additional Protocols to the Geneva Conventions, and the 1998 Rome Statute have reinforced these protections with specific provisions on cultural property.
• The ICC Is Working to End Impunity for Cultural Crimes: In September 2015, the court opened its first relevant case, against Ahmad Al Faqi Al Mahdi for the intentional destruction of historic and sacred sites in Timbuktu. Al Mahdi was an active member of Ansar al-Dine, a home-grown terrorist movement with close ties to Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM). He pled guilty and became the first perpetrator convicted by the court for cultural crimes (as well as the first Islamic extremist). This case set an important precedent and is already paving the way for subsequent investigations and eventual prosecutions. Indeed, Mali has referred an associate of Al Mahdi to the court, who is now in ICC custody awaiting his confirmation of charges hearing for crimes against humanity and war crimes, including torture, rape and sexual slavery, and cultural destruction.
• But More Needs to Be Done: Stopping the ongoing atrocity crimes against the populations of places like Libya, Syria, and Yemen—and their heritage—should always be the first priority. However, this is difficult, if not impossible, so long as hostilities continue. But, still, there is much the International community can do in the meantime. First, it can cut off cultural heritage as a source of financing for the organized criminals, armed insurgents, and violent extremists, by closing borders to undocumented antiquities. Second, it can incorporate cultural heritage protection in all peacekeeping mandates and training, as well as post-conflict planning and recovery trust funds. Third, crimes against culture should be criminally prosecuted along with other atrocity crimes, either through international tribunals or domestic prosecutions, recognizing they are first and foremost attacks against people.

On February 23, the Antiquities Coalition co-hosted an event hosted at the Freer Gallery of Art entitled “Culture at Risk: Yemen’s Heritage Under Threat.” This event convened experts from across the globe to discuss threats posed to Yemen’s rich cultural heritage from armed conflict, violent extremism, and cultural racketeering.

AC Panel on ‘The Response of the US and the International Community to the Crisis’, featuring (From the Left) Judge Luigi Marini, H.E. Ambassador Bughaighis, Ambassador (ret.) Feierstein, Deborah Lehr and Tess Davis.

The event opened with illuminating details about Yemen’s heritage and its immense value to humanity. Yemen has a diverse cultural heritage that extends back to the incense trail of the South Arabian kingdoms and over a millennium through a flourishing Islamic era. The remains of this heritage, tangible and intangible, are visible today, such as monumental buildings, sculpture, coins, gold and silver artifacts, and inscriptions to linguistic diversity, manuscript production, costume, poetry, and dance.

This priceless cultural heritage is under threat. Archaeologists, art historians, and specialists in heritage preservation spoke at great length about cultural destruction and looting in Yemen as a threat to history, human rights, national economies, and global security.

The Antiquities Coalition was proud to moderate the final panel which focused on the U.S. and international community’s response to these threats. This panel convened officials from around the globe, from the Permanent Mission of Italy to the UN to the Ambassador of Libya to the former U.S. Ambassador to Yemen. These current and former government officials discussed legal and policy tools that can be implemented to stop cultural racketeering in Yemen.

Click here to learn more about how the Antiquities Coalition is taking steps to combat looting in Yemen and stop the illicit trade in Blood Antiquities.

This week, in a New York Times exclusive, award-winning journalist Tom Mashberg exposed how cultural racketeering is financing crime, armed conflict, and violent extremism in the Yemeni Civil War, exacerbating the world’s worst humanitarian crisis.

The report coincided with the visit of H.E. Marwan Dammaj, Minister of Culture from the Republic of Yemen, who was in Washington and New York to raise awareness of the illicit trade in his nation’s conflict antiquities, and urge the international community to take immediate action against it. It also featured Yemen and the Antiquities Coalition’s recent release of information on 1,631 objects plundered from the country’s museums during fighting with Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula and the Houthi militias. According to Deborah Lehr, the AC’s Chair and Founder, whom Mashberg interviewed for the article, these missing artifacts “are ‘blood antiquities’ in every sense of the name, and they may have already been sold to unsuspecting buyers overseas.’”

The Times piece began with a firsthand account of looting in Yemen:

Yemen’s deputy culture minister, Abdulhadi Al-Azazi, remembers standing mute and teary-eyed two years ago amid the rubble of a national museum in his war-torn hometown, Taiz.

Objects he had admired as a youngster — ancient limestone carvings, gilded Torah scrolls, bejeweled Islamic daggers, a spindly 2,500-year-old mummy — were missing amid the charred debris and shattered display cases.

“The museum was wrecked and everything was stolen,” he said in a telephone interview. “Everywhere in our country we see the same thing happening now.”

Some four years into a civil war in which members of a faction known as Houthis have fought Yemen’s Saudi-backed government to a bloody stalemate, the extent of the human suffering has drawn global attention. Less noticed have been the cultural institutions and archaeological relics lost or ravaged during the conflict, including thousands of antiquities taken from Yemen’s museums…

To learn more about threats facing Yemen’s cultural heritage from cultural racketeering, as well as how Yemen is working to close foreign markets to their conflict antiquities, read the full Times article here.

Again, this week the Antiquities Coalition and Yemen also released information on over a thousand artifacts looted during the war with al-Qaeda and insurgents, which is available here.