Imposition of Import Restrictions on Archaeological and Ethnological Material of Yemen

<RULE> DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY <SUBAGY>U.S. Customs and Border Protection</SUBAGY> DEPARTMENT OF THE TREASURY <CFR>19 CFR Part 12</CFR> <DEPDOC>[CBP Dec. 24-15]</DEPDOC> <RIN>RIN 1515-AE83</RIN> <SUBJECT>Imposition of Import Restrictions on Archaeological and Ethnological Material of Yemen</SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCY:</HD> U.S. Customs and Border Protection, Department of Homeland Security; Department of the Treasury. <HD SOURCE="HED">ACTION:</HD> Final rule. <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> This document amends the U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) regulations to reflect the continuation of import restrictions on certain categories of archaeological and ethnological material of Yemen, pursuant to an agreement between the United States and the Republic of Yemen (the Agreement). The restrictions were originally imposed on an emergency basis by CBP Decision 20-01 on February 5, 2020, and will now continue, with various amendments, through April 15, 2029. The Designated List of archaeological and ethnological material of Yemen to which the restrictions apply is reproduced below, with certain modifications to make it consistent with the Agreement. </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> Effective on September 10, 2024. </EFFDATE> <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> For legal aspects, W. Richmond Beevers, Chief, Cargo Security, Carriers and Restricted Merchandise Branch, Regulations and Rulings, Office of Trade, (202) 325-0084, <E T="03">ot-otrrculturalproperty@cbp.dhs.gov.</E> For operational aspects, Julie L. Stoeber, Chief, 1USG Branch, Trade Policy and Programs, Office of Trade, (202) 945-7064, <E T="03">1USGBranch@cbp.dhs.gov.</E> </FURINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD1">Background</HD> The Convention on Cultural Property Implementation Act (Pub. L. 97-446, 19 U.S.C. 2601 <E T="03">et seq.</E> ) (CPIA), which implements the 1970 United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) Convention on the Means of Prohibiting and Preventing the Illicit Import, Export and Transfer of Ownership of Cultural Property (823 U.N.T.S. 231 (1972)) (Convention), allows for the conclusion of an agreement between the United States and another party to the Convention to impose import restrictions on eligible archaeological and ethnological material. In certain limited circumstances, the CPIA authorizes the imposition of restrictions on an emergency basis (19 U.S.C. 2603). The emergency restrictions are effective for no more than five years from the date of the State Party's request and may be extended for three years where it is determined that the emergency condition continues to apply with respect to the covered material (19 U.S.C. 2603(c)(3)). These restrictions may also be continued, in whole or in part, pursuant to an agreement concluded within the meaning of the CPIA (19 U.S.C. 2603(c)(4)). On February 7, 2020, U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) published a final rule, CBP Decision (CBP Dec.) 20-01, in the <E T="04">Federal Register</E> (85 FR 7209), which amended § 12.104g(b) of title 19 of the Code of Federal Regulations (19 CFR 12.104g(b)) to reflect the imposition of import restrictions on certain archaeological material and ethnological material of Yemen under the emergency protection provisions of the CPIA. Following imposition of the emergency import restrictions, the United States entered into a bilateral agreement with the Republic of Yemen  <SU>1</SU> <FTREF/> under the CPIA to continue the emergency import restrictions on certain archaeological and ethnological material of Yemen through April 15, 2029, with modifications to the Designated List. This period may be extended for additional periods, each extension not to exceed 5 years, if it is determined that the factors justifying the initial agreement still pertain and no cause for suspension of the agreement exists (19 U.S.C. 2602(e); § 12.104g(a) of title 19 of the Code of Federal Regulations (19 CFR 12.104g(a))). <FTNT> <SU>1</SU>  Due to an ongoing conflict within Yemen, this rule shall use the “Republic of Yemen” to denote the State party to the agreement and “Yemen” when discussing the archaeological/ethnological material and cultural heritage subject to the import restrictions. </FTNT> <HD SOURCE="HD1">Determinations</HD> Under 19 U.S.C. 2602(a)(1), the United States must make certain determinations before entering into an agreement to impose import restrictions under 19 U.S.C. 2602(a)(2). On November 18, 2022, the Assistant Secretary for Educational and Cultural Affairs, United States Department of State, after consultation with and recommendation by the Cultural Property Advisory Committee, made the determinations required under the statute with respect to certain archaeological and ethnological material originating in Yemen that is described in the Designated List set forth below in this document. These determinations include the following: (1) that the cultural patrimony of Yemen is in jeopardy from the pillage of archaeological material, dating from approximately 200,000 B.C. to A.D. 1773, and ethnological material representing Yemen's cultural heritage, ranging in date from approximately A.D. 1517 through 1918 (19 U.S.C. 2602(a)(1)(A)); (2) that the Republic of Yemen Government has taken measures consistent with the Convention to protect its cultural patrimony (19 U.S.C. 2602(a)(1)(B)); (3) that import restrictions imposed by the United States would be of substantial benefit in deterring a serious situation of pillage and remedies less drastic are not available (19 U.S.C. 2602(a)(1)(C)); and (4) that the application of import restrictions as set forth in this final rule is consistent with the general interests of the international community in the interchange of cultural property among nations for scientific, cultural, and educational purposes (19 U.S.C. 2602(a)(1)(D)). The Assistant Secretary also found that the material included in the determinations meets the statutory definition of “archaeological or ethnological material of the State Party” (19 U.S.C. 2601(2)). <HD SOURCE="HD1">The Agreement</HD> On August 30, 2023, the Governments of the United States and the Republic of Yemen signed a bilateral agreement, “Memorandum of Understanding Between the Government of the United States of America and the Government of the Republic of Yemen Concerning the Imposition of Import Restrictions on Categories of Archaeological and Ethnological Material of Yemen,” (the Agreement) pursuant to the provisions of 19 U.S.C. 2602(a)(2). The Agreement entered into force on April 15, 2024, following the exchange of diplomatic notes, and modifies the previously imposed emergency import restrictions on archaeological material dated from approximately 200,000 B.C. to A.D. 1773, as well as certain ethnological material of Yemeni cultural heritage from A.D. 1517 through 1918. A list of the categories of archaeological and ethnological material subject to the import restrictions is set forth later in this document. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Restrictions and Amendment to the Regulations</HD> Import restrictions on the archaeological and ethnological material of Yemen previously reflected in § 12.104g(b) will be continued through the Agreement without interruption. Accordingly, § 12.104g(a) of the CBP regulations is being amended to indicate that restrictions have been imposed pursuant to the Agreement, and the emergency import restrictions on certain categories of archaeological and ethnological material of Yemen are being removed from § 12.104g(b), as those restrictions are now encompassed in § 12.104g(a). Pursuant to the Agreement, and consistent with the CPIA, the Designated List originally published with the emergency restrictions in CBP Dec. 20-01 is being amended to correct certain typographical errors, to extend the date range for archaeological material to A.D. 1773, to clarify certain categories of archaeological material, to add the subcategory “Inscribed Documents” to the list of archaeological materials, to clarify that the ethnological material listed excludes Jewish ceremonial and ritual objects and manuscripts, and to reorganize the list of ethnological material by type of object instead of by material. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Designated List of Archaeological and Ethnological Material of Yemen</HD> The Agreement between the United States and the Republic of Yemen includes, but is not limited to, the categories of objects described in the Designated List set forth below. The Designated List includes archaeological and ethnological material from Yemen. The archaeological material in the Designated List includes, but is not limited to, objects made of stone, metal, ceramic, clay, glass, faience, semi-precious stone, paintings, plaster, textiles, leather, parchment, paper, wood, bone, ivory, shell, human remains, and/or other organic materials dated from approximately 200,000 B.C. to A.D. 1773. The ethnological material in the Designated List includes, but is not limited to, architectural materials, manuscripts, and religious and ceremonial objects from approximately A.D. 1517 to 1918. This would exclude Jewish ceremonial or ritual objects and manuscripts. The Designated List is representative only. Any dates and dimensions are approximate. For the reader's convenience, CBP is reproducing the Designated List contained in CBP Dec. 20-01 in its entirety with the previously detailed modifications. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Categories of Archaeological and Ethnological Material</HD> <EXTRACT> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">I. Archaeological Material</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">A. Stone</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">B. Metal</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2"> C. Ceramic and Clay </FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">D. Glass, Faience, and Semi-Precious Stone</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">E. Painting< ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 45k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━