Dugup antiquity dealer Dave Welsh has posted a text called "The Blather Factor" (Wednesday, October 23, 2013). It is a most odd text, and seems to be aimed directly at this blog. I think its context must be the publication a few hours earlier of a post when I pointed out the shortcomings of current US heritage protection legislation. Welsh dismisses such criticism as "blather".
I invite the reader to take neither my word nor that of my oponent, but to just click on the link and see for themselves what Article 1 of the 1970 UNESCO Convention on the Means of Prohibiting and Preventing the Illicit Import, Export and Transfer of Ownership of Cultural Property says. There are 11 (actually 15) broad categories of items considered cultural property coming within the remit of the Convention. In the text I was discussing, Mr Houghton reminds the US Cultural Property Advisory Committee that by US law they can only institute measures to protect three of them (Art 1 c and f - and possibly d). The other twelve will not be protected through the CCPIA. That is not "blather", it is a fact readers can check out and then ask themselves what the point is of becoming State Party to a Convention which you are not going to honour? Let the US do the honourable thing and withdraw from a Convention they are not going to endorse and fully uphold. OR begin at last fully upholding it.
.jpg)
No comments:
Post a Comment