Throughout history, acts of war such as bombardment as well as pillage and theft by invading forces are obvious threats cultural heritage. Especially, the illicit trade in cultural objects is now widely recognized as one of the most prevalent categories of intemational crime. Repatriations of cultural propeπy have already been extensively carried out by legal actions, by diplomatic pressure, by private donations or purchase, and so on since last decade. In the early 1970s, the concept of restitution crystallized around two basic issues: the removal of such cultural property from country of origin during the colonial period and the problem of continuing illicit traffic of cultural property which perpetuates and sometimes exceeds the past outflow. Increasing recognition of the significance of the cultural heritage as a source of information, knowledge, identity and continuity, and its important role in elucidating the various human civilization have increased the awareness of the responsibility of museum to preserve the cultural heritage as intact as possible for succeeding generations. Both problems of the illicit trade of cultural objects and the pillage of cultural property have forced members of the intemational community to act collectively the promulgation and pronouncement of intemational and national instrument and declarations. In this circumstance, the museum community is playing an active role in the protection of cultural objects, not only because of the losses sustained by museums but also because of a concem among museum professionals about the threat the illicit trade poses to the world’s cultural heritage. However, such efforts are not the absolute remedy to relieve the chronic problems around cultural property. From the historical perspective, the evolution of museums in the past two centuries has inevitably been intertwined with the colonial factors, often disenfranchising and indigenous people as prisoner of collections and archives. Indigenous people have survived despite of colonialism, imperialism, and cultural genocide. The emphasis is put on the recovery of cultural and national identity through the repatriation of dispersed cultural heritage since people have not only been despoiled of irreplaceable cultural objects but also robbed by colonization of their collective memory. In several parts of the world, museums and indigenous people are beginning to negotiate constructive partnerships and work toward readdressing the imbalances in the current practices of cultural heritage management. In this context, it is that museums have a fundamental role in addressing questions of the erosion of cultural self-esteem and modeling community relations strategies to enhance cross-cultural awareness about indigenous cultures. The immediate challenge for museum is to explore the historical background to the relationship between museums and indigenous people. This requires museums to address the colonial constructions of what constitutes “indigenous’ along with the associated discourse of control and dispossession. Such an introspective approach will enable the development of frameworks for a reassessment of current and past museum professional practice in terms of collecting procedures and methods According to the ICOM Code of Professional Ethics, a museum should not acquire the specimen and object which does not have a legal valid title. In addition, a museum should not acquire in any case the object which is involvedthe unscientific or intemational destruction or damage of ancient monuments or archeological sites, or involved a failure to disc10se the fmds to the owner and so on. In the last twenty years the museum world has given a great deal of thought to the development of standards for cataloguing objects in its collection. Although the great concems about the protection and preservation of cultural propeπy have developed among museum community, most museums have not made great efforts in revealing the ways of collecting objects and not had a chance to discuss about the valid legal title of their collection. Museums should move away from the individual’s personal gratification to a community-wide consciousness and a concem for worldwide issues. No issue is ofgreater importance or calls for more attention than the one relating to identity. What we really needs are the deeper and better understanding of ethical issues and the feeling of responsibility to protect the world cultural heritage. Better understandingof ethical issues related to collecting will not only give the individual a basis for self-judgement and professional self-respect in macro perspective but also dedicate to the preservation of a global, human heritage as caretakers. As such issues around cultural property such as illicit trade, repatriation, valid legal title, methods of collecting so on are thorny and divisive, only cooperation among museum professionals has any hope of offering a resolution. Unless the underlying problems are faced with sincerity and discussed with positive attitudes, mutual respect, in a spirit of goodwill, the issue of the preseπation and protection of cultural propeπy will go unsolved. It is the right time for museums and museum professionals to submit to such introspection.