Role of the international community in the fight against the illicit trafficking of cultural property : the case of Iraq

الملخص EN

Cultural heritage, in its variety of forms, is the manifestation of a peoples' knowledge, identity, and history, and targeting this heritage aim to annihilate another group's cultural identity and history.

As the list of atrocities committed against cultural heritage in the Middle East, it is clear that Iraq being the most affected by these atrocities, over the past quarter of a century.

In this regard, we find this cultural heritage has been subjected to cultural cleansing directly through destruction or indirectly through systematic looting and illicit trafficking.

This article reviews key aspects of Iraq's cultural heritage, including damage to heritage as a result of illicit site looting and traffic in looted antiquities and the role played by international organizations and international governmental and non-governmental professional organizations to combat this dangerous phenomenon for the future of Iraq's globally significant cultural heritage.