American Council for Cultural Policy (ACCP) was a not-for-profit organization formed in 2002 by a group of politically influential antiquities dealers, collectors and lawyers in the United States, with its headquarters in New York and representatives in Washington D.C. The goal of the organization was described by Ashton Hawkins as "informing the public on arts issues." The organization is now defunct and its website (culturalpolicycouncil.org) has been removed from the web. Some of its members now actively take part in Cultural Policy Research Institute. The organization has been famous for its views on heritage issues and advocating the lawful circulation of antiquities in a regulated trade that balances the interests of national heritage, archeological preservation and the international interest in cultural exchange by museum loans and the private market. ACCP's treasurer William Pearlstein has described Middle Eastern cultural heritage laws (especially those of Iraq) as "retentionist" and expressed a desire for the possibility of circulation of licensed exported antiquities. Some Archaeologists, academics, and cultural heritage lawyers have found these statements worrisome, as the members of ACCP are politically influential figures. Archaeological Institute of America's code of ethics maintain that its members "refuse to participate in the trade in undocumented antiquities and refrain from activities that enhance the commercial value of such objects. Undocumented antiquities are those that are not documented as belonging to a public or private collection before December 30, 1970, when the AIA Council endorsed the UNESCO Convention on Cultural Property, or that have not been excavated and exported from the country of origin in accordance with the laws of that country." (Source: AIA official webpage) It is widely believed by many academics that the trade and collectorship of antiquities fuel the looting and destruction of archaeological sites around the world. History and the structure of the group According to published news reports and its own website, the ACCP was directed by Ashton Hawkins, former executive vice-president and Counsel to the Trustees of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The group had its inaugural meeting with a 45-people Board of Advisers on 9 October 2002. According to an Art Newspaper article (see below), among them were the antiquities collector Shelby White (see Leon Levy), the former Getty curator Arthur Houghton (a vice-president), the former Kimbell Art Museum director Edmund Pillsbury, and the legal scholar Prof John Merryman. Several lawyers from major museums were also there. William Pearlstein was the