United States Committee of the Blue Shield

The United States Committee of the Blue Shield (USCBS) is a not-for-profit organization, with the mission to protect cultural property worldwide during armed conflict.The USCBS was formed in 2006, in response to heritage catastrophes around the world. The name, Blue Shield, comes from the 1954 Hague Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict, which specifies a blue shield as the symbol for marking protected cultural property. The International Committee of the Blue Shield (ICBS) and its affiliated national committees work together as the cultural equivalent of the Red Cross, providing an emergency response to cultural property at risk from armed conflict and natural disasters.

The USCBS coordinates information about cultural monuments and other important cultural and natural resources with the U.S. military, U.S. government, and other cultural property organizations to protect cultural property worldwide during armed conflict. The organization strives to raise public awareness about the importance of cultural property as the shared all humankind. The USCBS advises and assists, worldwide, in the protection of cultural property damaged or threatened by armed conflict or natural disasters and provide emergency planning.

The USCBS can be contacted at: U.S. Committee of the Blue Shield, 1025 Thomas Jefferson Street NW, Suite 500 East, Washington DC 20007. Telephone | 507 222 4231