Current Law

Laws on human remains trading vary from country to country, and from state to state within the United States. Most laws don’t explicitly ban private commercial person-to-person collecting.

In the United Kingdom, human remains that are less than 100 years old are governed by the Human Tissue Act of 2004. In the U.S., only Native American remains are federally protected, under the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act.

The import, export and advertised sale of recently buried remains, and the trade in human remains items with Indigenous cultural heritage, are widely prohibited. Human remains are not specifically mentioned in the 1970 UNESCO Convention on Cultural Property, but would be classified as protected materials.