Thailand has completed drafting legislation to prevent illicit activities involving cultural property, a step required to ratify the 1970 UN Convention on the Means of Prohibiting and Preventing the Illicit Import, Export and Transfer of Ownership of Cultural Property.
The process will take time, however, as the draft must pass both cabinet and parliamentary scrutiny, said a senior Fine Arts Department official.
Nittaya Kanokmongkol, director of the Office of National Museums, stated that the approval process may be slow, because priority is being given to drafting laws addressing poverty and hardship.
Thailand, historically rich in cultural sites and artefacts, is one of six ASEAN countries which are yet to ratify the 1970 UN Convention. Only Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, and Vietnam have ratified it so far.
Despite the lack of ratification, Nittaya noted that Thailand has received excellent cooperation from other countries, especially the United States, in recovering stolen artefacts.
She spoke at a ceremony last week, marking the return by the US of four artefacts to Thailand, including two from Ban Chiang.
The returned items were initially presented to a US soldier, as a gift from the Thai government in 1966, and had been kept at the US Embassy in Bangkok ever since.
It remains unclear why the US decided to return them at this time. During the ceremony, US Ambassador Robert Godec stated that the items had been kept in a carefully maintained environment at the embassy. "Now, however, is the right time to return these precious items to their rightful home," Godec told the audience.
In May, the US returned two other stolen artefacts to Thailand, a 900-year-old bronze statue of a Hindu god, nicknamed "Golden Boy" and another statue called "The Kneeling Lady." These items had been housed in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York since 1988.
During a seminar last week, it was revealed that the US plans to return two more artefacts to Thailand soon.
Thai Fine Arts Department official Phanombootra Chandrajoti confirmed that the provenance verification process is underway. He described the items as bronze statues, but did not disclose their possible places of origin.
"They have been in the possession of US nationals for quite some time," he said.
