Chapter 5 Human Rights and Illicit Trade in Cultural Objects

2012 ◽  
pp. 107-140 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Cultural Objects ◽  
Illicit Trade

Measures against the illicit trade in cultural objects: the emerging strategy in Britain

Antiquity ◽  
2004 ◽  
Vol 78 (301) ◽  
pp. 699-707 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Gaimster
Keyword(s):  
Hague Convention ◽  
Due Diligence ◽  
Criminal Offence ◽  
State Party ◽  
Cultural Objects ◽  
Illicit Trade ◽  
Illicit Market ◽  
The World ◽  
Unesco Convention ◽  
The Uk

Until recently the UK was notorious for its illicit market in unlawfully removed art and antiquities from around the globe. Today the UK marketplace is operating in a very different climate. The UK has recently become a state party to the 1970 UNESCO Convention and is now introducing a package of measures designed to strengthen its treaty obligations, central to which is the creation of a new criminal offence of dishonestly dealing in cultural objects unlawfully removed anywhere in the world. These also include the development of effective tools to aid enforcement and due-diligence. Recent events in Iraq have also forced the UK Government to announce its intention to ratify the 1954 Hague Convention.

scholarly journals Trafficking Cultural Objects and Human Rights

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Donna Yates
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Cultural Heritage ◽  
Art Market ◽  
Cultural Property ◽  
Cultural Groups ◽  
Cultural Objects ◽  
Western Model ◽  
Cultural Self ◽  
The Right ◽  
Human Rights Standards

Since the end of the second world war, international cultural heritage protection law and its domestic legal components have proceeded in their development in tandem with the development of international human rights laws and norms. A core tension in human rights thinking is evident also in debates about the right to cultural property: the potential for conflict between the right to cultural self–determination by one group and attempts to develop and promulgate human rights standards with universalising ambitions. This is reflected in cultural property ownership debates, where cultural heritage may be considered by some people as the common heritage of humankind and thus to some extent owned by us all, while others would see it as more properly owned by members of a more restricted group, or perhaps communally as tangible items of a certain culture.So there is a universalism vs particularism debate about the right to own, possess or otherwise enjoy, worship or value cultural objects just as there is the same debate on a much wider scale about universalism vs particularism in human rights in general. As with that wider debate, where universalism has been criticised for being a veil for the global transfer of western liberal capitalist values (e.g. Woodiwiss 2005), so too in the cultural property debate the construction of the idea of ‘the world’s cultural heritage’ has tended to represent in practice a view that favours the idea of the ‘encyclopaedic’ Western model of the museum, thus suggesting an ideal where material cultural heritage is stored in cultural repositories around the world rather than leaving (or reinstating) it to its country of origin or to a community thought to have the closest historical, cultural or religious connection to it.This view is fiercely opposed by those who consider this to be, in effect, an attempted justification of the forcible extraction of this particular resource from the developing world. They prefer to define and delineate cultural property rights in terms of ‘the property of a culture’ rather than as ‘property which is cultural’ insofar as the latter might represent a contemporary reflection of the values and views of the global art market rather than the communities and cultures whose heritage is at stake. In international legislation aimed at cultural property protection there is some ambivalence around these views, with the preambles of the governing conventions tending to strike a diplomatic balance between recognising important cultural artefacts as the particular interests of cultural groups, states or ‘all peoples’, while also approving of some of the effects of the worldwide diffusion of cultural heritage, most of which is due to the mechanics of the art market.

The Illicit Trade in Cultural Objects

2021 ◽  
pp. 220-235
Author(s):  
Arianna Visconti
Keyword(s):  
Criminal Law ◽  
Cultural Objects ◽  
Illicit Trade

Trying to explain why it has taken so long, Arianna Visconti traces the relatively recent evolution of attempts to suppress the trafficking in cultural objects towards criminalization. She sets out how the halting attempts to criminalize in the failed Council of Europe’s Delphi Convention have reached only potential fruition in the latest pure criminal law treaty, the Council of Europe’s 2017 Nicosia Convention, and questions whether criminalization really is the solution.

scholarly journals Crowdsourcing Antiquities Crime Fighting

2018 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 173-178 ◽  
Author(s):  
Donna Yates
Keyword(s):  
Citizen Science ◽  
Satellite Imagery ◽  
General Public ◽  
Web Portal ◽  
Cultural Objects ◽  
Illicit Trade ◽  
The Public ◽  
Historical Importance ◽  
Science Methodology ◽  
The Way

In early 2017, Sarah Parcak used her $1 million TED Prize to build the GlobalXplorer° platform (https://www.globalxplorer.org) “to identify and quantify looting and encroachment to sites of archaeological and historical importance,” using a crowdsourced “citizen science” methodology popularized by the Zooniverse web portal. GlobalXplorer° invited the public to search satellite imagery from Peru for evidence of looting within 100 m × 100 m squares, training them along the way and gamifying participation. In this review, I test the platform and consider the applicability of GlobalXplorer° as a vector for changing the way that the general public perceives the global illicit trade in cultural objects.

The Fight Against the Illicit Trade in Asian Cultural Artefacts: Connecting International Agreements, Regional Co-operation, and Domestic Strategies

2013 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 341-363 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stefan GRUBER
Keyword(s):  
International Agreements ◽  
Cultural Objects ◽  
Illicit Trade ◽  
Bilateral Agreements ◽  
International Solidarity ◽  
Large Numbers ◽  
Historical Sites ◽  
Source Countries ◽  
International Conventions ◽  
Illicit Trafficking

AbstractLooting and illicit trafficking of cultural artefacts pose major threats to Asia's cultural heritage. This not only causes a continuing loss of cultural objects but also the destruction of large numbers of archaeological and historical sites as objects are often looted from tombs or cut off from larger pieces in order to obtain transportable parts for sale on the international art market. In addition, items are stolen from collections and museums or are trafficked in violation of export bans. This article explores the relevant international conventions dealing with the prevention of the illicit export of cultural artefacts and their repatriation, examines how those legal instruments are implemented in Asia and extended in bilateral agreements between market and source countries, and how particularly regional co-operation between Asian nations, international solidarity and assistance, and relevant domestic approaches can assist in improving the situation.

scholarly journals State Immunity, Property Rights, and Cultural Objects on Loan

2015 ◽  
Vol 22 (2-3) ◽  
pp. 279-299 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alessandro Chechi
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Property Rights ◽  
Humanitarian Law ◽  
Cultural Objects ◽  
The Past ◽  
State Immunity ◽  
Art Objects ◽  
Protection Of Human Rights ◽  
Ambivalent Relationship ◽  
The Relationship

Abstract:In the art field the centuries-old concepts of property and state immunity are interwoven in an ambivalent relationship. Immunity rules may constitute a shield for the works of art that have been temporarily sent abroad for exhibition purposes. The obverse of the same coin is that the same rules may thwart the legal actions filed by individuals against foreign states to retrieve art objects lost in the past as a result or in connection with grave violations of human rights and humanitarian law. This article examines this conundrum and argues that the relationship between property rights and immunity rules should be reconceptualised and aligned with the values and priorities of the international community, such as the protection of human rights, the reparation of massive and violent crimes and the respect for cultural heritage.

scholarly journals Bride Trafficking in India: Aspects, Causes and Potential Solutions

2021 ◽  
Vol 8 (3) ◽  
pp. 67-92
Author(s):  
N. K. Upadhyay
Keyword(s):  
Domestic Violence ◽  
Human Rights ◽  
Family Members ◽  
The State ◽  
Human Rights Violations ◽  
Female Infanticide ◽  
Illicit Trade ◽  
In Transit

Bride Trafficking is a long-standing evil in society that can be classified as a crime against humanity because it violates the rights, dignity and the liberty of the victims involved. Bride Trafficking is so deep rooted in society that providing accurate figures is extremely difficult since it is often impossible to track down and trace individual incidents of Bride Trafficking. According to the author, who has conducted a case study with fifty women from the State of Haryana, inter-country trafficking for the purpose of marriage is widespread in India. Trafficked women are subjected to a slew of atrocities, including being raped in transit and then raped by their husbands and other male family members. Apart from that, they face domestic violence, are treated worse than slaves and are frequently trafficked multiple times. Poverty, female foeticide, female infanticide, illiteracy, dowry and other factors can all contribute to trafficking. In this paper, the author will discuss Bride Trafficking in general, the reasons for it, the human rights violations that these trafficked brides face and the potential solutions to this illicit trade.

scholarly journals Whose Cultural Objects? Introducing Heritage Title for Cross-Border Cultural Property Claims

2020 ◽  
Vol 67 (2) ◽  
pp. 257-295
Author(s):  
Evelien Campfens
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
International Law ◽  
Legal Status ◽  
Legal Framework ◽  
Cultural Property ◽  
Private Law ◽  
Human Rights Law ◽  
Cultural Objects ◽  
Unesco Convention ◽  
Art Trade

Abstract Cultural objects have a special, protected, status because of their intangible ‘heritage’ value to people, as symbols of an identity. This has been so since the first days of international law and, today, there is an extensive legal framework to protect cultural objects and to prohibit looting. Despite this, for as long as demand exists and profits are high, cultural objects continue to be looted, smuggled and traded. At some point, their character tends to change from protected heritage in an original setting to valuable art and commodity in the hands of new possessors. In this new setting, the legal status of such objects most likely will be a matter of ownership and the private law regime in the country where they happen to end up. This article suggests that, irrespective of the acquired rights of others, original owners should still be able to rely on a ‘heritage title’ if there is a continuing cultural link. The term aims to capture the legal bond between cultural objects and people, distinct from ownership, and is informed by international cultural heritage and human rights law norms. The proposition is that, whilst ownership interests are accounted for in national private law, legal tools are lacking to address heritage interests and identity values that are acknowledged in international law. Neither the existing legal framework for the art trade, based on the 1970 UNESCO Convention, nor regular ownership concepts appear particularly suited to solve title issues over contested cultural objects. The notion of ‘heritage title’ in a human rights law approach can act as a bridge in that regard.

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