On July 9, 2018, US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) published in the Federal Register a final rule [CBP Dec. 18-07] that amends the CBP regulations to continue the import restrictions on archaeological and ethnological material from Libya previously imposed on an emergency basis in a final rule published on December 5, 2017 (82 Fed. Reg. 57346). These restrictions are being imposed pursuant to an agreement between the United States and Libya that has been entered into on February 23, 2018, under the authority of the Convention on Cultural Property Implementation Act (19 U.S.C. 2601 et seq.). The document also contains the Designated List of Archaeological and Ethnological Material of Libya that describes the articles to which the restrictions apply. Accordingly, the final rule amends the CBP regulations by removing Libya from the listing of countries for which emergency actions imposed the import restrictions, and adding Libya to the list of countries for which an agreement has been entered into for imposing import restrictions. Import restrictions are being imposed for a five-year period (until February 23, 2023).

The Designated List covers archaeological material of Libya and Ottoman ethnological material of Libya (as defined in section 302 of the Convention on Cultural Property Implementation Act (19 U.S.C. 2601)), including, but not limited to, the following types of material. The archaeological material represents the following periods and cultures: Paleolithic, Neolithic, Punic, Greek, Roman, Byzantine, Islamic and Ottoman dating approximately 12,000 B.C. to 1750 A.D. The ethnological material represents categories of Ottoman objects derived from sites of Islamic cultural importance, made by a nonindustrial society (Ottoman Libya), and important to the knowledge of the history of Islamic Ottoman society in Libya from 1551 A.D. through 1911 A.D.