Emergency actions and partnerships

I- Emergency Actions

UNESCO undertakes various emergency activities in order to raise awareness among the international community about the necessity of protecting cultural heritage and fight against illicit trafficking of cultural property, especially in crisis situations. Among them, three key actions are led, in Afghanistan, in Haiti and in Iraq:

1- Iraq:

• Fighting against illicit trafficking of cultural property. See Emergency Action- Iraq;
• Actions in favor of the restitution of stolen objects from Iraqi Museum.

2- Haiti:

• Actions to prevent the looting of the country's cultural heritage

3- Afghanistan:

• Fighting against illicit trafficking of cultural property;
• Actions in favor of the return of artefacts to National Museum of Afghanistan.

II- Partnerships

UNESCO collaborates with many intergovernmental, non-governmental and national organizations in the fight against looting, theft and degradation of cultural property.

1- Intergovernmental organizations

UNESCO works closely with intergovernmental organizations that are also acting in favour of cultural goods' protection and against their trafficking at the international level.

• INTERPOL
• UNIDROIT
• WCO
• EUROMED-Heritage

2- Non-governmental organizations

UNESCO works in partnership with non-governmental organizations specialized in the protection of the cultural heritage. Notably it maintains close relations with the International Council of Museums (ICOM).

3- National Bodies

UNESCO collaborates regularly with the national bodies and institutions whose mission is to fight against traffic, theft and looting of cultural property. Becoming more aware of the necessity of protecting their national cultural heritage, States are developing prevention and search actions:

• Central Office for the Fight against Traffic in Cultural Goods (France).
• Carabinieri Department for the protection of Cultural Heritage (Italy).
• Federal office for culture (Switzerland)
• State Secretary of Culture (Argentina)