[1] The CCPIA implemented the 1970 UNESCO Convention on the Means of Prohibiting and Preventing the Illicit Import, Export and Transfer of Ownership of Cultural Property.

[2] It delegates authority to impose import restrictions of archaeological and ethnological materials from other State Parties to the Convention.

The President appoints the Committee's eleven members: The United States Senate unanimously gave its advice and consent to ratify the 1970 UNESCO Convention on August 11, 1972.

The Senate Finance Committee acknowledged that the United States is a principal market for art and antiquities.

The Committee believed that allowing stolen or valuable cultural property to be imported into the United States would damage relations with countries from which the archaeological and ethnological materials originated.

[9] Another reason for the bill was the growing interest in Native American, Hawaiian, and Alaskan cultural property in the international art market.

Through the CCPIA, the Committee wanted to encourage international cooperation to control the trafficking of these archaeological and ethnological objects.

[12] To accommodate private sector interests, the Senate Finance Committee amended the bill so that the United States could not establish import controls unilaterally.

[9] It believed that some cultural property subject to forfeiture under the CCPIA would be small in value and that neither the government nor the claimant would want to bear the cost of judicial proceedings.

Claimant, a Bolivian citizen, imported the paintings into the United States in 2005, taking them to a gallery for restoration and consignment.

[16] In 2010, United States Customs and Border Protection (CBP) seized Pre-Columbian and Colonial textiles, metals, lithics, and perishable remains from Peru at Miami International Airport.

Claimant moved to dismiss for lack of subject matter jurisdiction, failure to state a claim, and denial of due process of law.