U.S. Committee of the Blue Shield

U.S. Committee of the Blue Shield

Blue Shield Emblem identifies protected cultural property
Abbreviation	USCBS
Formation	2006
Type	Non-governmental not-for-profit
Purpose	Cultural heritage protection
Website	http://uscbs.org

The U.S. Committee of the Blue Shield (USCBS), founded in 2006, is the United States national committee of the International Committee of the Blue Shield (ICBS). ICBS was formed according to the provisions of the 1954 Hague Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict, which specifies a symbol of a blue shield for marking protected cultural property. The Association of the National Committees of the Blue Shield (ANCBS), of which USCBS is a member, is an organization of the affiliated national committees of ICBS from nations around the globe.

Founding president of USCBS Corine Wegener served in the U.S. military and was deployed in 2003 to work with the National Museum of Iraq staff immediately after the infamous looting of the museum in Baghdad. After that experience and her retirement from the military, she found herself inspired to form the U.S. Committee of the Blue Shield. USCBS is a membership organization governed by a board of directors composed of prominent cultural property professionals in the areas of law, museums, libraries, archivists,conservation, archaeology, education and architecture. USCBS Board members, Patty Gerstenblith and Nancy Wilkie, serve on the Cultural Property Advisory Committee of the U.S. Department of State. The Smithsonian Institution and the Archaeological Institute of America have entered into Memoranda of Understanding (MoUs) with USCBS.

USCBS was formed as a charitable not-for-profit corporation in 2006. It functions in a similar capacity as the Red Cross (which provides humanitarian relief), by supporting U.S. implementation of the 1954 Hague Convention, which requires the protection of cultural heritage in danger from armed conflict or natural disasters worldwide.