Conflict, Looting and the Law Essay

Museums are filled with unique,historical artifacts that are precious to our history throughout the world. These “traveling exhibits” give people around the world an opportunity to see how our ancestors lived in many different regions of the world. Many artifacts are far away from their country of origin 7.In the articles “Bring Them Home”and “Museums Preserve the Cultures of the World,” people argue that museums should return certain artifacts to its original country, while others believes it’s only right to keep them considering the originating country rightfully sold those artifacts.In my opinion, countries should bring some artifacts back to their originating country.

These assumptions may seem alarmist. However, Da'esh has repetitively said that they despise "Western" culture and find it idolatrous. Therefore, to contain Da'esh and simultaneously achieve maximum strategic success, the United States and its allies must evolve by focusing efforts on countries to adopt proactive measures that will curb the market for antiquities and artifacts from Syria and other parts of the Middle East and North Africa. A law signed by President Obama on May 9, 2016 makes it illegal to import antiquities from Syria into the United States. This law should focus the efforts of the Joint Terrorism Task Forces to assist prosecutors in order to seize the wealth and jail those engaged in this illicit market at all levels. Severe prosecution and the associated public disgrace of western collectors and dealers will reduce market demand and by doing so diminish a major funding stream for terrorists, rogue regimes, and transnational organized crime. Following this law, it is critical that the United States Government makes efforts to include international cultural experts to depoliticize and optimize transdisciplinary and interagency strategies including counter-threat finance. By using such enhanced efforts, the United States will lead the global community in holding those accountable who commit and profit by cultural

This paper explores the political, legal, and ethical issues at stake in the debate over the custody of the Iraqi Baath Party records. Caswell presents the Iraqi Baath Party records as a lens through which one can view the complexities of cultural property repatriation on a broader scale – and how the current frameworks of repatriation only perpetuate dangerously oversimplified binary thinking.

However, artifacts should not be repatriated to the countries of their origin because museums are to educate people about different places, things, objects, cultures, and eras. If the artifact is donated then the museum’s highest priority is to honor the donor’s wishes. And if the museum found the artifact(s) in a foreign country, then it should stay with museum

To begin, one reason why the museums shouldn’t return the artifacts is because whoever found the artifact has the artifact in their history not the person who owns the land. “Such as when Ponce de León’s ships landed on Florida's east coast near present-day St. Augustine. He claimed this beautiful land for Spain, so Spain has now has Florida in their history” Further, another reason why the museums shouldn’t return the artifacts is because if the countries that want them back want them so bad then why don’t they just pay the countries

Many horrible and despicable acts have been committed during wartime. However, some of the worst acts committed are not readily known, such as the destruction and looting of historical areas and heritage sites. Published in Near Eastern Archaeology, an article named “Satellite Imagery-Based Analysis of Archaeological Looting in Syria” tackles this issue. In it Jesse Casana, the author, explains how his team is using satellite imagery (along with ground reports) to track the widespread looting across Syria. Casana is currently an Associate Professor at Dartmouth College, in the Department of Anthropology. He is also directing a survey project in the Diyala River Valley in Iraq. His previous engagement was as director of an excavation at Tell Qarqur in Syria. His specialization is in the development and implementation of geospatial technology and its use in archaeology. The combination of his boots on the ground experience in Syria, along with his specialization makes him a perfect candidate to lead the analysis on these looting sites. There are many reasons that I chose to review this article, the foremost being that it simply sounded fascinating. In addition to that, I wanted to gather more information as to where, why, and to what extent, looting was occurring. /!/

There are many similarities in the ethical statements/codes of the SAA, SHA, AIA, and RPA. The ones that pertain to this case are as follows: it is the responsibility of archaeologists to work for the long-term conservation and protection of the archaeological record (SAA 1, AIA 1, RPA 1.1-e). The buying and selling of objects out of archaeological context is contributing to the destruction of the archaeological record around the world, and these items should not be traded, sold, bought, or bartered as commercial goods (SAA 3, SHA 6, AIA 2, RPA 1.2-e). Within reasonable time, the knowledge archaeologists gain

Since the beginning of their establishment, ISIS has been known for another calling card; that is destroying antiquities all throughout the many countries and territories they have confiscated over the years. Imagine if you will thousands of years of history destroyed in minutes. Ancient artifacts, statues and even relics that document the history of human civilization have all been wiped out by the terrorist regime. Their reasoning for destroying and vandalizing these high-value and even priceless antiques of time was simplistic. They do it because they believe god said it should be done.

From what I learned from the past assigned readings and class discussions, one of the difficult decisions that museums have to make is do they return their objects/artifacts back to their original countries or cultural group. This issue is an ethical dilemma because, would it be the museum to legally keep the objects because of their belief that they can protect and use these items (Warren 1999: 1-20). Or, would it be ethical for the museum to return the items that were previously removed from their country or place of origin. Based on my lecture notes and discussion for this week’s class, one of the ways which many countries and cultural groups are able to acquire back their objects/artifacts legally is through the process of restitution and

On March 19, 2003 Baghdad was under fire. Three weeks later, American tanks roll into the Iraq capital scenes of triumph replaced by chaos. The US Military wasn’t prepared for citywide civilian crisis and eventually everything went up for grabs—even the treasures of the Iraq museum. The Iraq Museum have object materials from about half a million years ago – carvings, statues, and pottery. All the archaeological data was housed

Is it ethically right for museums to be able to take cultural artifacts from their country of origin? Antiquites should be to their country of origin because in cultures such as Native American tribes described in “Passage 1: Returning Antiquities to Their Countries of Origin in paragraph 4 written by Joyce Mortimer” some of their artifacts are now on display in museums for anyone to see, even though these objects were to be kept private and for religious ceremonies, not for the public eye to see. By museums taking away these objects from such tribes, they now lose a crucial part of their culture which really depicts their qualities and beliefs.

Unesco has named Iraqi marshlands once ravaged by dictator Saddam Hussein as a world heritage site, a bright spot for a country where jihadists have repeatedly sought to wipe out history.

Community Courts could very well be one of the best things to happen to not only the criminal justice system in the past 10 years or so but for the community also. Rather than sending people for mild offenses to prison for their crimes, such as minor drug crimes, they get the opportunity to rehabilitate back into society and contribute to society as a citizen. Personally, community courts are a fantastic attribute of the criminal justice system. They keep people that shouldn’t be in prison (people addicted to drugs, people who made mistakes in life such as vandalizing or burglarizing a home) out of prison and give them a second chance. Regional treatment courts (drug courts) often play a large role in getting people off of drugs and out of prison. People shouldn’t be in prison for petty things such as having a small amount of marijuana, or any drug at that. Drug addiction is a psychological issue, not physical issues, and drug courts help bring a realization to this to the criminal justice system.

In fact, burglary doesn’t even hit the radar when measuring inventory shrinkage in the US. What does hit the radar according to the holy grail of studies in the industry, the National Retail Security Survey by The University of Florida: #1 employee theft, #2 shoplifting #3 Administrative errors, #4 Unknown, and #5 Vendor fraud.

The episode “Tango” in the television show “Law and Order” tells a story of an investigation regarding a murder of a teenage girl, including the arrest and prosecution of two different offenders within the criminal justice system. The story line and the characters embody different assumptions and values within their roles and the crime. There are many different restorative assumptions and values that are could have played a vital role in healing and resolution, but were unfortunately missing from the storyline. The portrayal of the criminal justice system that is represented in “Tango” does have an impact on viewer’s faith and perspective of the system and its effectiveness. These arguments are active in an analysis of the “Law and Order” episode “Tango” through a restorative justice lens.