This article constitutes the first systematic attempt to synthesize the role of politics as an affecting dynamic during the negotiation of cultural property disputes. The article limits its scope to disputes concerning the ownership of cultural artifacts between states and museums settled through negotiation and to the subsequent claims for the return of the contested objects. The discussion focuses on four ways in which the negotiation process is affected when states act as claimants, including the discourse and argumentation used, the available means to pressure the other party to negotiate, the possible political interventions, and the international political scene and its effect on the development of the dispute. Through the examination of multiple case studies, it is argued that in such disputes, several elements related to the role of politics are at interplay affecting the evolution of the negotiation process. Finally, it is also argued that the role of politics as an affecting dynamic during the negotiation process is multi-dimensional, consisting of many different interrelated dynamics that can potentially alter the course of the process.

Since 2000, the United Kingdom’s Spoliation Advisory Panel has provided an alternative dispute resolution mechanism for resolving disputes surrounding Nazi era dispossessions of cultural objects. This article analyzes the way in which the panel has reached its recommendations and how they have been implemented. While the panel’s recommendations provide a means of resolving disputes in circumstances where litigation might fail a claimant, claimants may encounter difficulties should an institution fail to implement the recommended remedy because of the extra-judicial nature of the recommendations. This article therefore analyzes the effectiveness of the panel’s work in overcoming some of the shortcomings of litigation and the way in which the parties have put into effect the panel’s recommendations. Furthermore, suggestions are made for ways in which to ensure compliance with the recommendations even in the absence of judicial enforcement.

Based on research into the confiscated photographic and document archives in the hands of the top antiquities dealers (Robin Symes-Christos Michaelides, Robert Hecht, Giacomo Medici, and Gianfranco Becchina), so far more than 250 looted and smuggled masterpieces have been repatriated from the most reputable North American museums, private collections, and galleries, mainly to the Italian and the Greek states. Most of these repatriations were advertised in the press as voluntary action by the institutions and the individuals who possessed them. However, this is far from true; the repatriations were the results of lengthy negotiations, where the presentation of evidence alternated with diplomatic tactics and legal threats in order for the two parties (in some cases, three) to reach an agreement. Among the much-celebrated repatriated antiquities are at least two cases that require further research regarding their legal owner. This article aims to analyze these two cases and to set out new questions. In the end, there is doubt that the state who finally received these antiquities is necessarily the one from which they have been looted and smuggled. Based on this analysis, the article aims to highlight alternative paths to the discovery of the truth, paths that might have been more effective, if they had been followed.

This article examines the pros and cons of alternative dispute resolution (ADR). It also examines two cases in which Greek cultural treasures were returned to their country of origin by a US museum and a US collector on the basis of negotiations: the J.P. Getty Museum and the Leon Levy and Shelby White cases respectively. The Parthenon Marbles case is also examined, especially in light of the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization’s recent (2013) invitation to the United Kingdom (UK) to accept mediation on the matter and the UK’s even more recent (2015) rejection of the invitation. In all three cases, the facts are set out and the author attempts an assessment of the ADR means used. Conclusions are drawn as to whether ADR is a feasible and beneficial option for the parties and whether, nowadays, it constitutes the norm in cases when cultural treasures are returned to their countries of origin.

This article details a successful case of restitution of important antiquities stolen from the National Museum of Afghanistan in Kabul during the Afghan Civil War (1992–94). These items had been excavated by the Délégation Archéologique Française en Afghanistan at the site of Begram during 1937 and 1939 and were allocated to the museum in Kabul when the excavated finds were divided between the National Museum of Afghanistan and the Musée Guimet (Paris). In Kabul, the most important objects were put on permanent display, but they were placed in storage in 1989 when the museum was officially closed and the capital threatened by war after the withdrawal of Soviet forces. Many objects were hidden, and some are now touring in an international exhibition hosted by the British Museum in 2011.1 However, most of the Begram ivories were stolen and entered different collections. The following article discusses how a group of 20 of these exquisite carvings were acquired, conserved, exhibited, and returned to Kabul as a direct result of the negotiations for the British Museum exhibition.2 This allowed the first scientific analyses of Indian ivories of this period, and the results provided important new evidence for the extent of polychromy as well as the scale of the different unrecorded conservation treatments previously applied to these highly fragile objects.3 The objects were returned safely to Kabul in 2012. This article also sets out some of the lessons learned from this chain of events and how it can provide an example for future restitutions.