Nowadays, cultural heritage has very rich legal backing, and the attention of most governments to this issue is felt more than ever before. With the growth of crimes against cultural, historical, and religious heritage in different countries by individuals and organized gangs, national and global attention has been drawn to this dangerous phenomenon; of course, how to deal with these crimes has been manifested in the form of national laws, conventions, declarations, and resolutions, etc., and factors such as floods, earthquakes, wind, rain, and conspiracies and plots of domestic and foreign enemies to plunder these works and dehumanize nations have also contributed to the cause. Given that historical and cultural properties form part of the country's cultural heritage, crimes committed against them can be considered crimes against public order in addition to crimes against property. In this regard, American criminal law has also criminalized crimes against cultural heritage and has considered the perpetrators of the aforementioned crimes punishable. The American legislator has had a more balanced reaction to the perpetrators of these crimes compared to the Iranian legislator and has paid more attention to prevention and culture building in order to reduce crimes against cultural heritage. In Iran, despite the long history of criminalization in the field of cultural heritage, unfortunately, an increase in destruction, theft, smuggling, and destruction of historical and cultural monuments can be observed; therefore, criminalization in this field helps to obtain a relative understanding of the status of existing criminal laws in the field of cultural heritage and ultimately to identify gaps and shortcomings in existing laws in order to inform the legislator. Therefore, the need for laws and regulations related to the protection of cultural heritage is important, and serious efforts to carry out this task as well as possible are necessary.