via Unesco, 08 July 2021: A round-up of the recent online conference celebrating the 50th anniversary of the Unesco 1970 convention on cultural property. The link below has links to the full proceedings online.
The year 2020 marked the 50th Anniversary of the UNESCO 1970 Convention on the Means of Prohibiting and Preventing the Illicit Import, Export and Transfer of Ownership of Cultural Property (hereafter referred to as the UNESCO 1970 Convention). In recognition of this anniversary, UNESCO, in close cooperation with partners, has organized a number of events including an international conference on “Cultural Heritage and Multilateralism” in Berlin in November 2020 and the launch of a global communication campaign worldwide: “The Real Price of Art” in October 2020. Regional conferences were also organized in Latin America and the Caribbean on the 1st and 8th of October 2020, in Africa on the 26th and 27th of April 2021 and in the Asia-Pacific on the 29th and 30th of June 2021.
Attended by 136 participants from 22 countries, the Asia-Pacific Regional Conference aimed to take stock of concrete achievements to date and to collectively debate and agree upon a set of priorities for the region in Asia and Pacific. The participants were from the Governments of Thailand, Cambodia, China, Mongolia, Australia, Republic of Korea, Vietnam, Kazakhstan, India, Nepal, Pakistan, Fiji, Sri Lanka, Indonesia, New Zealand, Vanuatu: senior officials of the national and local governments across various sectors such as culture, law enforcement, foreign affairs, trade, tourism, etc.; national and international institutions and organizations such as the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), the International Council of Museums (ICOM), Interpol; professionals, experts and representatives of the private sector and civil society including the Antiquities Coalition from the US, Singapore Heritage Society; and museums of the region (China, Indonesia, etc.).
