The United States may have some of the toughest restitution and repatriation laws in the world, but we've done a lousy job of protecting our own cultural patrimony. Among our few cultural heritage laws, the gold standard is probably the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (known as NAGPRA). Enacted in 1991, it established guidelines for tribes to reclaim anything associated with a burial ground, such as funerary objects and human remains, as well as sacred and communally owned objects. It's one of the toughest such laws in the world, and its principles have helped influence legislation in other countries with indigenous native populations, such as Canada, Australia, and New Zealand.