In November 1970, participants in the UNESCO Convention on the Means of Prohibiting and Preventing the Illicit Import, Export and Transfer of Ownership of Cultural Property, Paris, issued a treaty document specifying that “States [countries] recognize that the illicit import, export and transfer of ownership of cultural property is one of the main causes of the impoverishment of the cultural heritage of the countries of origin of such property...to this end, the States Parties undertake to oppose such practices with the means at their disposal, and particularly by removing their causes, putting a stop to current practices, and by helping to make the necessary reparations.” The treaty entered into force on April 23, 1972.
Although this treaty was not ratified by the United States until 1983, the Hood Museum of Art has adhered to the 1970 date for purchased works and gift acquisitions since 2000. Some of the museum’s antiquities, however, entered the collection in the 1970s, 1980s, and early 1990s.