The Deputy Secretary General, Ms Gabriella Battaini-Dragoni attended the international seminar “A new perspective on the protection of cultural property through criminal law”, organised by the IMT School for Advanced Studies in Lucca, Italy on 3-4 February. The event took place under the patronage of the Italian Ministry of Justice and the Italian Ministry of Cultural Heritage and Activities and Tourism. The Programme included interventions from Ms Battaini-Dragoni who informed participants about the current Council of Europe work on the new Convention on Offences relating to Cultural Property, which will supersede the previous “Delphi” Convention of 1985. This work is being carried out in close collaboration with various international organisations, including UNIDROIT, UNESCO, UNODC and the European Union, and drawn up under the authority of the European Committee on Crime Problems and its specialised group on offences relating to cultural property (PC-IBC).
The Convention will aim to prevent and combat the intentional destruction of, damage to, and trafficking in cultural property by strengthening criminal justice responses to all offences relating to cultural property while facilitating co-operation on an international level.
The Deputy Secretary General reminded participants however that “Good laws are only ever half the battle. We urgently need to identify credible and realistic means of putting the new instrument into practice. This will be an ambitious text – but lofty ambitions will not make a difference unless we know how to ensure that the treaty has real teeth.”
