Threat and Trends: The Traffic and Illicit Trade of Cultural Property for Terrorist Purposes

On 7 September 2022, CTED, in close collaboration with UNESCO and the Permanent Mission of Italy to the United Nations, welcomed experts from academia and civil society for an inaugural roundtable discussion on the terrorist dimension of the traffic and illicit trade of cultural property.
The discussion shed light on the nature, scope and discernable trends currently defining the phenomenon, and identified existing research, legal and policy gaps and opportunities to be built upon to comprehensively address the issue at national, regional and international level, including within the framework of UNESCO’s related Conventions.
While condemning the destruction of cultural heritage in contexts of armed conflicts, including and notably by terrorist groups, the United Nations Security Council has highlighted on different occasions the role that the illicit trade and trafficking in cultural property can have in generating revenue to support recruitment efforts and strengthen the operational capacity of terrorist groups to organize and carry out attacks.
Most recently, in resolution 2617 (2021), the Security Council encouraged CTED “to raise awareness of the importance of Member State cooperation with investigations, prosecutions, seizure and confiscation as well as the return, restitution and repatriation of trafficked, illicitly exported or imported, stolen, looted, illicitly excavated or illicitly traded cultural property, through appropriate channels and in accordance with relevant legal frameworks as well as with the United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime and the Protocols thereto and relevant regional, subregional, and bilateral agreements”.
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