The destruction, looting, and trafficking of cultural property, especially during times of political instability and armed conflict, is a longstanding international concern. Destruction of cultural property entails intentional or unintentional bombing and damage to sites and objects. Looting involves the illegal removal of undocumented objects from a site or structure not already excavated. Objects documented as part of a collection may also be stolen from individuals, museums and similar institutions, and other places of origin. Looted and stolen objects may be trafficked, or illicitly traded, sometimes outside the location in which the objects were looted or stolen. The United States has a history of protecting cultural property during times of conflict. For example, when the Nazi regime made a practice of looting art and other cultural property during World War II, the Allied Armies established the Monuments, Fine Arts, and Archives Section, known as the Monuments Men, who restored and returned to their rightful owners more than 5 million works of art, though many thousands of pieces of art were never recovered by their rightful owners (see fig. 1). Although cultural property has been destroyed throughout history, the civil war in Syria, which began in 2011, and the rise of ISIS in portions of Iraq, has resulted in what members of the UN have called the worst cultural heritage crisis since World War II. Several parties to the Syrian conflict have contributed to the destruction of Iraqi and Syrian cultural property. According to a State-funded research project on cultural property, terrorist organizations; Iraqi, Russian, and Syrian airstrikes; Kurdish groups; Syrian opposition groups; and individual actors have damaged cultural sites and property. Damages include the shelling of medieval cities and looting of museums containing items that date back more than 6 millennia. By around July 2014, ISIS had destroyed hundreds of religious sites throughout the territory it controlled, including Christian statues of the Virgin Mary and the tomb of the Prophet Jonah in Mosul. Furthermore, according to a United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) official, ISIS bombed two temples in Palmyra, Syria, and brutally murdered a Syrian archaeologist in August 2015, after reportedly questioning him about the location of valuable artifacts in the city. Iraq and Syria have 10 World Heritage sites that UNESCO has determined to be of cultural or natural significance. See figure 2 for a map of reported damage and looting at these culturally and naturally significant sites. In addition to the destruction of cultural property, State officials reported that looters, including people affiliated with ISIS and other terrorist organizations, other parties to the conflict, as well as opportunistic individuals, have illegally excavated areas in Iraq and Syria, presumably in search of antiquities to sell. The proceeds of these sales could be linked to financing terrorism, according to a Deputy Assistant Secretary of State. For example, ISIS manages and profits from industrial-scale looting at sites it controls in Iraq and Syria. Moreover, satellite imagery shows the archaeological site Dura Europos in Syria in 2012, before extensive looting, and after extensive looting in 2014, as depicted in the visible looting pits in figure 3. A Deputy Assistant Secretary of State reported that ISIS has encouraged the looting of archeological sites as a means of both erasing the cultural heritage of Iraq and Syria and raising money. The State official noted that the U.S. raid to capture ISIS leader Abu Sayyaf resulted in the finding of documents that demonstrated that ISIS had established an Antiquities Division with units dedicated to researching known archaeological sites, exploring new ones, and marketing antiquities. According to these documents, the Antiquities Division collects a 20 percent tax on the proceeds of antiquities looting and issues permits authorizing certain individuals to excavate and supervise excavations of artifacts. Documents found during the raid also indicate ISIS made statements prohibiting others from excavating or giving permits not authorized by ISIS. Sales receipts indicated the terrorist group had earned more than $265,000 in taxes on the sale of antiquities over a 4-month period in late 2014 and early 2015. However, the director of the State-funded project on cultural property reported that there are no reliable and publicly available estimates of the revenue ISIS earns from trade in stolen cultural property overall. Nonetheless, State officials also noted that although trafficking is difficult to quantify, ISIS has increasingly turned to the antiquities trade as access to revenue from other sources, such as oil, has been restricted. According to the International Council of Museums (ICOM), the categories of Iraqi and Syrian cultural property most vulnerable to trafficking range from written objects, figural sculpture, stamps, and seals such as cylinder seals, to coins and clay tablets with cuneiform writing (see figs. 4 and 5). According to experts, cultural property looted from Iraq and Syria is at risk of being trafficked to the United States and Europe. A State-funded research project reported that traffickers are likely smuggling cultural property out of Iraq and Syria, through Turkey and Lebanon, and on to Europe; art market experts believe that some material may also be destined for the Middle East and Asia. According to art market experts, the United States and the United Kingdom have historically had the two largest markets for legal antiquities, particularly in New York City and London. Some art market experts have speculated that illicitly obtained Iraqi and Syrian items may end up in these markets, often after having gone through intermediaries. Many art market experts we interviewed told us that they had not seen suspicious Iraqi and Syrian cultural property for sale in the United States, particularly newly circulated objects that could have been looted or stolen recently. The art market experts who reported an absence of antiquities on the market noted that media attention may be deterring buyers from acquiring objects, causing traffickers to find clients in markets other than the United States and Europe, or delaying the sale of items, as happened with items looted from the Iraq National Museum in Baghdad during the Second Gulf War in Iraq. However, other art market experts noted they had seen some cultural property they suspected of having been looted from Iraq or Syria for sale on the internet and in galleries. Further, according to State officials, antiquities dealers and auction houses may never see suspicious items because these items may remain entirely in the illicit market or surface only on internet sales websites. In addressing destruction, looting, and trafficking of cultural property, UNESCO adopted conventions in 1954 and 1970 to protect cultural property. The 1954 convention addresses cultural property protection during armed conflict, and the 1970 convention addresses the protection of cultural property against illicit import, export, and transfer of ownership. Ratified by the United States in 2009, the 1954 Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict (1954 Hague Convention), in part, calls on parties to refrain from any act of hostilities against their own or other parties’ cultural property, to refrain from using such property for purposes that are likely to expose it to destruction or damage in the event of armed conflict, and prohibit theft and acts of vandalism against such cultural property. If one party occupies the territory of another party in whole or in part, the occupying party, as far as possible, is to support the competent national authorities of the occupied country in safeguarding the occupied party’s cultural property. Additionally, should it prove necessary to take measures to preserve cultural property situated in occupied territory and damaged by military operations, the occupying party shall, as far as possible, and in close cooperation with the authorities of the occupied party, take the most necessary measures to preserve cultural property damaged during the conflict should the competent national authorities be unable to do so. Iraq and Syria are signatories to the 1954 Hague Convention. The United States enacted the Convention on Cultural Property Implementation Act (CPIA) into law in 1983, thereby implementing provisions of the 1970 UNESCO Convention on the Means of Prohibiting and Preventing the Illicit Import, Export and Transfer of Ownership of Cultural Property (1970 UNESCO Convention). Through the CPIA, the United States has restricted the importation of certain cultural property. For example, as it relates to cultural property from Iraq and Syria, this restriction covers cultural property documented as belonging to the inventory of a museum or a religious or secular public monument or similar institution, which was stolen from such museum, monument, or institution after April 12, 1983. In addition to the 1983 CPIA import restriction on stolen documented property, the United States has implemented other restrictions related to a wider range of cultural property from Iraq and Syria. In response to Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait on August 2, 1990, the United States imposed comprehensive sanctions against Iraq. After the fall of Saddam Hussein in 2003, the Iraq National Museum in Baghdad was looted, resulting in the loss of approximately 15,000 items, including ancient amulets, sculptures, ivories, and cylinder seals. Some of these items, such as the one shown in figure 6, were returned to the museum. In 2007, pursuant to the Emergency Protection for Iraqi Cultural Antiquities Act of 2004, State determined the existence of an emergency condition under the CPIA, and import restrictions for cultural property illegally removed from locations in Iraq other than museums and monuments since 1990 were also put in place. In February 2015, the United Nations Security Council unanimously adopted resolution 2199, which notes, in part, that all member states shall take appropriate steps to prevent the trade in Iraqi and Syrian cultural property illegally removed from Iraq since August 6, 1990, and from Syria since March 15, 2011. In May 2016, the United States passed the Protect and Preserve International Cultural Property Act, which requires the President to restrict the importation of Syrian archaeological and ethnological material beginning no later than August 2016. While the CPIA restricts the importation of documented cultural property that is stolen from state parties to the 1970 UNESCO Convention— including Iraq and Syria—some imports, regardless of their country of origin, are exempt from the CPIA.