International Cultural Property Protection and the Web: Electronic Resources in Europe and the U.S

National policies concerning the protectlon of cultural property vary widely throughout the world. Yet a consensus of sorts is building surrounding the 1970 UNESCO Convention on the Means of Prohibiting and Preventing the Illicit Import, Export and Transfer of Ownership of Cultural Property (1970 Convention). As of July, 1998, eighty-nine states had ratified the 1970 Convention bringing the number of participants to over half the existing recognized states worldwide. However, each country implements the 1970 Convention differently. The imposition of import restrictions on categories of objects subject to looting in the requesting country is one of the principal US. activities under this type of cultural property agreement. Words alone cannot adequately describe the range of variation within categories of objects subject to import restriction. Web-based distribution of images Illustrating restricted categories of objects is the obvious solution. Customs and law enforcement personnel, museum officials, scholars, archaeologists, collectors, and the interested public would all have access to the illustrations and other descriptive information regarding restricted artifacts. This paper will indicate how these challenges were met and, to the extent possible after six months online, how the Web site has affected the ability of the US. to offer protection to cultural property worldwide. Design and implementation of this image database presented a number of challenges in: illustrating categories of objects rather than specific items; creating a data model that uses an accepted international standard; using descriptive terms and search rnechanisms that meet the needs of the law enforcement community as well as specialists and the general public; designing an interface that accommodates both high end and low