Permanent Representative of the Russian Federation to the Council of Europe Ambassador Ivan Soltanovsky has signed the Council of Europe Convention on Offences relating to Cultural Property of May 19, 2017 (CETS 221).

The Convention is a unique international treaty dealing with the criminal; law aspects of the protection of cultural heritage. The Document was elaborated seeing the infamous acts of destruction of World Cultural Heritage objects by ISIL (the terrorist organization is prohibited in Russia) in Syria and Iraq in 2015-2017.

The key element of the Convention is the criminalization of a broad range of offences in respect of cultural objects (theft, destruction, illegal excavation etc.). The Treaty also contains a number of innovative elements such as the obligation to criminally prosecute for offences committed in a non-member state of the Convention.

The Russian Federation is the 10^th state to sign the Convention which has been ratified by two countries Cyprus and Mexico up to date.