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A Theorization On Equity: Tracing Causal Responsibility For Missing Iraqi Antiquities And Piercing Official Immunity, Robert Bejesky

Pace International Law Review

Three weeks after the U.S.-led attack on Iraq, looters descended on the artifacts in the Iraq National Museum. Over ten thousand pieces were assumed destroyed or stolen, and the Coalition Provisional Authority estimated the losses at $12 billion. The gravity of the privation led the Security Council to include language in Resolution 1483 to restrict countries from trading in Iraq’s pillaged antiquities, and the U.S. Congress passed the Emergency Protection of Iraqi Cultural Antiquities Act of 2004 to enforce the measures. Several thousand pieces were recovered, but thousands remain missing. In March 2013, Hussein ash-Shamri, the head of the Iraqi …