On 12 June the Director-General signed a framework agreement with the Secretary General of the International Institute for the Unification of Private Law (UNIDROIT), Mr José Angelo Estrella Faria.
The UNIDROIT is an independent intergovernmental organization (IGO) founded in 1926 as an auxiliary organ of the League of Nations and re-established in 1940 on the basis of multilateral agreement. It has its seat in Rome since 1928. As of today, UNIDROIT has 63 Member States.
The mission of UNIDROIT is to study needs and methods for modernizing, harmonizing and co-ordinating private law between countries, and to formulate uniform law instruments, principles and rules to achieve those objectives.
The 1995 UNIDROIT Convention on Stolen or Illegally Exported Cultural Objects (Rome, 24 June 1995) and 20th Anniversary of its signature in Rome was an occasion for further discussions on possible bilateral collaborations with ICCROM. The same Convention is often mentioned and discussed in various training initiatives, together with the UNESCO Conventions, among the international measures related to cultural heritage protection and safeguarding. This framework agreement will certainly consolidate the already-established links between the organizations.