Wednesday 18 July 2012

Problems with Understanding Plain English in the US State Department

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The US State Department in "implementing" the 1970 UNESCO Convention on the Means of Prohibiting and Preventing the Illicit Import, Export and Transfer of Cultural Property tells Cyprus to  get tough on metal detectorists allegedly pillaging archaeological sites before it will deign to do its part under the 1970 UNESCO Convention to help stop the flow of illicit antiquities from the Island. It seems to me that the US Department of State has confused this Convention with another. If you read the documents' content with any attention, it becomes clear that it is NOT a convention about the pillaging of archaeological sites (this is regulated in Euroope by other international documents, ones to which the US is not party). It is, as it says on the box, a Convention on the Means of Prohibiting and Preventing the Illicit Import, Export and Transfer of Cultural Property. And nothing else. It is the US CCPIA which attempts to apply it solely to another task, but the Cypriots are not bound by the US CCPIA, are they? 
Just who do these people think they are?   

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