The protection of cultural objects has recently emerged as a worldwide issue. Art crime covers various categories that include art theft, illicit traffic and faking of art and antiquities. The history of the world explains that political instability of a growing number of countries , open borders and the advancement of the art market constantly intensify threats to cultural properties. However, this serious situation can be basically attributed to the reason that works of art and antiquities have been recognised as commodities exchangeable in the market. The international organisations such as the United Nations Educational , Scientific and Cultural Organisation(UNESCO) , the International Council of Museums(ICOM) and the International Criminal Police Organisation(ICPO or INTERPOL) have been making efforts to protect cultural properties against art crime , nevertheless, the state of the illicit trade often prevents their efforts from making any real improvement. The importance of documentation, both textual and visual. in preventing the illicit trade in cultural objects has long been recognised. Documentation is crucial to the protection of cultural property , for 0비 ects which have not been photographed and adequately described are rarely recoverable by law enforcement officials. Law enforcement agencies often have difficulty in returning recovered items to their rightful owners since there is no documentation by which the objects can be identified. It is unfortunately true that very few stolen items have been documented effectively enough. This paper. therefore. begins to illustrate the importance of documentation to protect cultural 0비 ects against the illicit trade . and will present results of the project that the Getty Information Institute. USA. launched to make international documentation standards for such purpose. The pr이 ect. officially called Object ID. aimed to create a core standard for documentation so that the digital information can be transmitted and exchanged in the worldwide computer networks. Eleven categories selected mainly by the results of the Institutes questionnaire surveys are introduced in the main chapter. The later part of this paper finalises up-to-date development of Object ID in the international c비tural sector. Also introduced is the Korean version of Object ID which the Korean National Committee of ICOM recently helped the Institute to create.