Izzah Khan, Ph.D. student in Art History at the University of Texas at Austin and Executive Board Member of ICOM Pakistan, was invited to speak at the International Conference on Fighting the Illicit Trafficking of Cultural Properties in Pakistan, held on October 21, 2025 in Karachi. The event was organized by UNESCO Islamabad in collaboration with the Directorate of Antiquities and Archaeology, Government of Sindh.
Khan delivered a talk titled “Assessing the Implementation of the 1970 UNESCO Convention in Pakistan: Challenges and Policy Directions.” Building on her doctoral research at UT Austin, which examines the circulation, provenance, and illicit trade networks of Gandharan and South Asian antiquities, she argued for a shift in Pakistan’s cultural heritage governance from reactive recovery efforts to proactive protection and risk prevention.
Her presentation identified structural challenges in Pakistan’s heritage management framework, including the absence of a national task force on cultural property crime, lack of inter-agency coordination, unregulated private trade, and incomplete museum inventories. Drawing from international museum standards and UNESCO guidelines, Khan proposed the following policy measures:
Establishment of a specialized heritage crime unit within law enforcement
Creation of a centralized digital inventory for all museums and storage depots
Capacity-building programs for museum professionals, Customs, FIA, and Police
Enforcement of dealer registration laws under Section 25 of the Antiquities Act (1975)
Stronger international cooperation, provenance research, and pre-export verification mechanisms
Khan’s participation highlights UT Austin’s growing research engagement in global heritage policy, museum ethics, and the protection of cultural property in conflict and high-risk regions. Her work forms part of a broader interdisciplinary movement that links art history, heritage law, and transnational art crime studies.