The Looting of the Iraq Museum: Curbing the Trade in Illicit Iraqi Patrimony

Published in the Entertainment, Arts and Sports Law Journal
A publication of the Entertainment, Arts and Sports Law Section of the New York State Bar Association
Fall/Winter 2009, Vol. 20, No. 3

The Iraq Museum in Baghdad was the world's most extensive collection of Mesopotamian art and provided invaluable insight into the very first human civilizations, which is why many considered it an international travesty that it was extensively looted in early April 2003, at the inception of the Iraq War.¹ Some blamed the U.S. military, which was occupying Iraq while removing Saddam Hussein from power, while others blamed the resulting illicit trade of Iraqi antiquities on the unethical practices of art professionals and collectors. The continued smuggling and slow rate of return of these antiquities can be partially attributed to Iraq's inadequate infrastructure for protecting its cultural property and the ineffectiveness of existing international policies. Above all, the lack of cooperation between the United States, Iraq, and those art professionals who operate with veiled motivations are causing and exacerbating the circulation of looted works.

In March 2003, the Multi-National Forces, led by the United States, invaded Iraq. Before the war commenced, members of the Archaeological Institute of America, museum directors and art professionals feared that invaluable Mesopotamian artifacts stored in museums and archaeological sites throughout Iraq would be destroyed. In particular, they alerted the U.S. government of the Iraq Museum's value and stressed the need to protect its holdings upon invasion.2 The Pentagon heeded their warnings and ordered "the Iraq Museum [be] placed on the coalition's no-strike list."3 However, this precaution was inadequate and the Iraq Museum was ransacked from the inside by local and foreign looters.4

According to the 1954 Hague Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict, during wartime the occupying power is responsible for safeguarding the cultural property of the occupied nation, even when the occupied nation fails to do so.5 Many archeologists and journalists held the U.S. military responsible for the looting, claiming that the U.S. Task Force I-64 stationed four tanks within the Irag Museum compound and "could have moved [...] just five hundred yards closer to protect the museum."6 If the Task Force did indeed deliberately fail to take action, or made unjustifiably insufficient effort to do so, the U.S. government would have violated the 1954 Hague Convention.