CULTURAL PROPERTY ASPECTS IN INTERNATIONAL LAW: THE CASE OF THE (STILL) INADEQUATE SAFEGUARDING OF INDIGENOUS PEOPLES' (TANGIBLE) CULTURAL HERITAGE

2011 ◽  
Vol 58 (03) ◽  
pp. 335-361 ◽  
Author(s):  
Athanasios Yupsanis
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Heritage ◽  
International Law ◽  
Indigenous Peoples ◽  
Cultural Property

Protecting Taonga: the cultural heritage of the New Zealand Maori

1999 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 108-132 ◽  
Author(s):  
RK Paterson
Keyword(s):  
New Zealand ◽  
Cultural Heritage ◽  
Indigenous Peoples ◽  
Cultural Property ◽  
Found Objects ◽  
Cultural Objects ◽  
Major Development ◽  
Unesco Convention ◽  
Waitangi Tribunal

New Zealand concerns regarding cultural heritage focus almost exclusively on the indigenous Maori of that country. This article includes discussion of the way in which New Zealand regulates the local sale and export of Maori material cultural objects. It examines recent proposals to reform this system, including allowing Maori custom to determine ownership of newly found objects.A major development in New Zealand law concerns the role of a quasi-judicial body, the Waitangi Tribunal. Many tribunal decisions have contained lengthy discussions of Maori taonga (cultural treasures) and of alleged past misconduct by former governments and their agents in relation to such objects and Maori cultural heritage in general.As is the case with legal systems elsewhere, New Zealand seeks to reconcile the claims of its indigenous peoples with other priorities, such as economic development and environmental protection. Maori concerns have led to major changes in New Zealand heritage conservation law. A Maori Heritage Council now acts to ensure that places and sites of Maori interest will be protected. The council also plays a role in mediating conflicting interests of Maori and others, such as scientists, in relation to the scientific investigation of various sites.Despite these developments, New Zealand has yet to sign the 1970 UNESCO Convention on the Means of Prohibiting and Preventing the Illicit Import, Export, and Transfer of Ownership of Cultural Property. The changes proposed to New Zealand cultural property law have yet to be implemented, and there is evidence of uncertainty about the extent to which protecting indigenous Maori rights can be reconciled with the development of a national cultural identity and the pursuit of universal concerns, such as sustainable development.

scholarly journals Indigenous Peoples, World Heritage, and Human Rights

2018 ◽  
Vol 25 (3) ◽  
pp. 245-281 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ana Filipa Vrdoljak
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Cultural Heritage ◽  
International Law ◽  
Indigenous Peoples ◽  
World Heritage ◽  
Cultural Organization ◽  
World Heritage Convention ◽  
The World ◽  
The Right ◽  
Human Rights Based Approach

Abstract:Indigenous peoples’ emphasis on protecting their cultural heritage (including land) through a human rights-based approach reveals the synergies and conflicts between the World Heritage Convention and the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP). This article focuses on how their insistence on the right to participate effectively in decision-making and centrality of free, prior, and informed consent as defined in the UNDRIP exposes the limitations of existing United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization and World Heritage Convention processes effecting Indigenous peoples, cultures, and territories and how these shortcomings can be addressed. By tracking the evolution of the UNDRIP and the World Heritage Convention from their drafting and adoption to their implementation, it examines how the realization of Indigenous peoples’ right to self-determination concerning cultural heritage is challenging international law to become more internally consistent in its interpretation and application and international organizations to operate in accordance with their constitutive instruments.

The “Quimbaya Treasure,” Judgment SU-649/17

2019 ◽  
Vol 113 (1) ◽  
pp. 122-130 ◽  
Author(s):  
Diego Mejía-Lemos
Keyword(s):  
International Law ◽  
Indigenous Peoples ◽  
Cultural Property ◽  
Constitutional Court ◽  
Colombian Government ◽  
Treaty Interpretation ◽  
Settlement Of Disputes

The Colombian Constitutional Court (Court) ordered the Colombian government to seek the restitution of a set of 122 golden objects of the Quimbaya people in a judgment issued on October 19, 2017 (Judgment). The Judgment addressed significant issues of international law relating to unilateral acts, treaty interpretation, cultural property (particularly that of indigenous peoples), and the settlement of disputes involving claims for restitution of cultural property through diplomacy and mediation.

Cultural Property and Identity Issues in International Law

2012 ◽  
pp. 256-277
Author(s):  
Athanasios Yupsanis
Keyword(s):  
International Law ◽  
Indigenous Peoples ◽  
Cultural Property ◽  
Sacred Objects ◽  
Cultural Sites ◽  
State Of Affairs ◽  
Cultural Relics

Indigenous peoples have historically experienced countless losses of cultural relics and material and spiritual treasures as well as destruction of their sacred cultural sites, a situation that continues to prevail. This desecration of ancestral sites and pillaging of sacred objects results in the cultural debasement of indigenous peoples, causing a serious threat to their continuing collective existence as distinct societies. Unfortunately, the present international law regime for the protection, repatriation, and return of stolen and illegally exported cultural property presents serious deficiencies as regards its ability to reverse this state of affairs and effectively safeguard indigenous peoples’ heritage.

How do you patent a landscape? The perils of dichotomizing cultural and intellectual property

1999 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 14-47 ◽  
Author(s):  
RL Barsh
Keyword(s):  
International Law ◽  
Indigenous Peoples ◽  
Scientific Knowledge ◽  
Performing Arts ◽  
Cultural Property ◽  
Knowledge Systems ◽  
Indigenous Institutions ◽  
Natural Land ◽  
Scientific Objects ◽  
Cultural Monuments

For a variety of conceptual, historical, and political reasons, contemporary international law distinguishes between 'natural' land forms, cultural monuments, movable cultural property, the performing arts, and scientific knowledge. Indigenous peoples do not make these distinctions. Rather, they tend to regard landscapes as inherently cultural products in which artworks, literature, performances, and scientific-knowledge systems are inextricably embedded. Scientific knowledge must periodically be rehearsed within the landscape in recitations and performances that remember the historical process by which people and their nonhuman kinfolk constructed the landscape. Detaching specific cultural or scientific 'objects' from the landscape and commodifying them, as is contemplated by most current proposals for protecting indigenous peoples' rights, will undermine the indigenous institutions and procedures necessary for perpetuating the quality and validity of local knowledge.

Cultural Genocide and Restitution: The Early Wave of Jewish Cultural Restitution in the Aftermath of World War II

2020 ◽  
Vol 27 (3) ◽  
pp. 349-374
Author(s):  
Leora Bilsky
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Cultural Heritage ◽  
International Law ◽  
Jewish People ◽  
Cultural Property ◽  
Cultural Dimensions ◽  
Cultural Groups ◽  
World War ◽  
Cultural Genocide ◽  
Military Tribunal

AbstractCultural restitution in international law typically aims to restore cultural property to the state of origin. The experience of World War II raised the question of how to adapt this framework to deal with states that persecuted cultural groups within their own borders. Nazi Germany’s persecution of Jews and its attempt to destroy their cultural heritage began before the war and was carried out systematically throughout the war in the conquered territories. After the war, the Polish Jewish lawyer Raphael Lemkin advocated for the recognition of the new crime of genocide and, in particular, its cultural dimensions. Jewish organizations also argued that cultural destruction should be seen as an integral component of the crime of genocide and that the remedy of cultural restitution should be part of the effort to rehabilitate the injured group, but their efforts to gain recognition in the International Military Tribunal in Nuremberg for the unique harm suffered by the Jews were unsuccessful. This article discusses an innovative approach developed by Jewish jurists and scholars in the late 1940s and 1950s, according to which heirless cultural property was returned to Jewish organizations as trustees for the Jewish people. Though largely forgotten in the annals of law, this approach offers a promising model for international law to overcome its statist bias and recognize the critical importance of cultural heritage for the rehabilitation of (non-state) victim groups.

On Defining the Cultural Heritage

2000 ◽  
Vol 49 (1) ◽  
pp. 61-85 ◽  
Author(s):  
Janet Blake
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Heritage ◽  
International Law ◽  
Great Part ◽  
World Order ◽  
Hague Convention ◽  
Cultural Property ◽  
International Treaties ◽  
15Th Century ◽  
Works Of Art ◽  
The Hague Convention

Examples can be found from ancient times of concern for the protection of cultural artefacts and early legislation to protect monuments and works of art first appeared in Europe in the 15th century. Cultural heritage was first addressed in international law in 1907 and a body of international treaties and texts for its protection has been developed by UNESCO and other intergovernmental organisations since the 1950's. The 1954 Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict of UNESCO (henceforth the “Hague Convention”) is the earliest of these modern international texts and was developed in great part in response to the destruction and looting of monuments and works of art during the Second World War. It grew out of a feeling that action to prevent their deterioration or destruction was one responsibility of the emerging international world order and an element in reconciliation and the prevention of future conflicts. International law relating to the protection of cultural heritage thus began with comparatively narrow objectives, the protection of cultural property in time of war.

What Does It Take to Protect Cultural Property? Some Aspects on the Fight against Illegal Trade of Cultural Goods from the Greek Point of View

2017 ◽  
Vol 24 (3) ◽  
pp. 351-376 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kostas Nikolentzos ◽  
Katerina Voutsa ◽  
Christos Koutsothanasis
Keyword(s):  
Law Enforcement ◽  
Cultural Heritage ◽  
International Law ◽  
Statistical Data ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Cultural Property ◽  
Historical Background ◽  
Illegal Trade ◽  
Cultural Goods ◽  
Illicit Trade

Abstract:An overview of both the theoretical approach and the set of actions taken during the last decade by Greece – a country with a profound historical background and rich cultural heritage – to face the problem of the illicit trade of cultural goods. The article contains not only statistical data on recent cases of thefts, clandestine excavations, confiscations, and repatriations of cultural goods but also information on law enforcement and the effort to establish a network to fight the phenomenon on an international level. Aspects such as conforming to the international law, monitoring auctions of antiquities, raising people’s awareness, and reinforcing the current security status of museums and archeological sites are taken into consideration as successful methods for protecting the cultural heritage.

The fundamental aims of cultural property law

1998 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 376-394 ◽  
Author(s):  
FG Fechner
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Heritage ◽  
International Law ◽  
Cultural Property ◽  
Property Law ◽  
National Interests ◽  
Public International Law ◽  
Cultural Objects ◽  
Cultural Object ◽  
The Law ◽  
International Conventions

The law of cultural property is primarily based on the interests of the states concerned. If a cultural object is of high monetary or identificatory value, states will contest the ownership, and many of these cases are resolved by compromise. If a cultural object is of less monetary or identificatory value, states often neglect its preservation. Yet the law for protection of cultural property should not only be a method for the arbitration of national interests but should also take into account the interests of humankind in general, including preservation of the object in its original context, public accessibility, and the scientific, historic and aesthetic interests that can be associated with an object. While some states are unable to protect their cultural heritage, especially in times of war, public international law does not prevent a state from destroying its cultural heritage. Cultural heritage law is developing rapidly, and national laws and international conventions are in the process of creation. At this time, the author posits, it is therefore necessary to consider the reasons for the protection of cultural objects.

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