The article is dedicated to the official decrees issued by Joseph Stalin in 1945 ordering the Soviet removal of cultural property from Eastern European and German territories occupied by the Red Army. As opposed to popular belief dominant today in Russia, such decrees were few. Preparation for the removal of cultural property from enemy countries had started before the fate of the war was decided. In 1943 on the request of academician Igor Grabar, the Bureau of Experts was established with the task of composing lists of so-called “eventual equivalents,” which Soviet officials wanted to receive after the war as “restitution in kind,” to compensate for the cultural losses of the USSR. The listed equivalents included art works from museums and private collections in the Axis countries. However, the projected provisions for “restitution in kind” were never approved by the Allies, in large part because during the last months of the war and immediately thereafter, the Soviet Union had already begun massive removal of cultural property from territories occupied by the Red Army. Different trophy brigades sent to the front lines were authorized or ordered to send back home whole collections of German museums and libraries. Only rarely were any of the ‘trophies’ labeled “compensation.”

On June 1, 2005, the Swiss Federal Act on the International Transfer of Cultural Property (Cultural Property Transfer Act [CPTA]) and the regulations thereof became effective. The CPTA implements the minimal standards of the UNESCO Convention of 1970 on the Means of Prohibiting and Preventing the Illicit Import, Export, and Transfer of Ownership of Cultural Property. The CPTA fills a gap, because Switzerland is not a member state of the Convention of June 24, 1995, on Stolen or Illegally Exported Cultural Objects (Unidroit Convention 1995). In addition, as a nonmember state of the European Union (EU) and the European Economic Community (EEC), the Council Directive 93/7/EEC of March 15, 1993, on the Return of Cultural Objects Unlawfully Removed from the Territory of a Member State is not applicable. The CPTA enforces foreign export bans in Switzerland. However, claims in Switzerland for return of foreign, illegally exported cultural property are only successful when there is an agreement on the import and return of cultural property between Switzerland and the claiming foreign state. Like Switzerland, the claiming state must be a member state of the UNESCO Convention of 1970.

Since 2014, when the Caribbean Community officially launched its claim against former European colonial powers for reparations for slavery and native genocide, there has been a renewed interest in the question of cultural reparations and, more specifically, Caribbean cultural objects located in European museums. Yet information about such material remains scarce; there have been no formal claims for returns, and the legal status of Caribbean collections in European museums is anything but clear. This article aims to address these issues. First, we sketch the profile of Caribbean archaeological collections located in European museums to shed light on their nature and provenance. On this basis, we then move on to analyzing the legal status of such collections in light of international law, before discussing the broader political and ethical framework of returns and the role of cultural cooperation in reparatory justice for the Caribbean more generally.

Urban redevelopment projects increasingly draw on culture as a tool for rejuvenating city spaces but, in doing so, can overemphasize the economic or exchange-value potential of a cultural space to the detriment of what was initially meaningful about a space—that which carries great cultural community wealth, use-value, or embodies a group’s intangible cultural heritage. Development and preservation interests illustrate this tension in terms of how cultural heritage—both tangible and intangible—is managed in the city. This article will turn to Toronto’s “Music City” strategy that is being deployed as part of a culture-focused urban redevelopment trend and Creative City planning initiative in order to examine how the modern urban intangible merits of city spaces are valuated and dealt with in light of the comparatively weak regard accorded to intangibility within the available heritage protection legal frameworks of Canada, Ontario, and, specifically, Toronto. The currently underdeveloped recognition for intangibility in the heritage protection equation not only fails to equally valuate non-dominant, unconventional, or alternative iterations of culture but also falls behind the key guiding documents in international law for the safeguarding and recognition of intangible cultural heritage as well as in accounting for intangibility in determining heritage value. Without diligent inclusive strategies to account for, and consult, the diverse spectrum of groups, cultures, and cultural spaces affected by urban heritage and cultural city planning processes, a city’s development initiatives risk counterproductively destroying the precise characteristics they are otherwise seeking to nourish, create, and, even, commodify.

In Latin America, conflict-of-law norms have not appropriately considered the cultural diversity that exists in their legal systems. However, developments towards the recognition of Indigenous peoples’ human rights, at the international and national levels, impose the task of considering such diversity. In that regard, within the conflict-of-law realm, interpersonal law offers a useful perspective. This article proposes a conflict-of-law rule that can contribute to clarity and legal certainty, offering a sound way of dealing at the national level with Indigenous peoples’ claims for restitution of property with a cultural value for them, which is framed in international instruments on human rights.

An Act to confer power to return certain cultural objects on grounds relating to events occurring during the Nazi era. [12th November 2009]

Over the past decade, tribal leaders, archivists, and librarians in the United States and Canada have expressed an interest in improving existing relationships and developing new relationships with nontribal institutions that hold American Indian archival material. In April 2006 a group of 19 Native American and non-Native American archivists, librarians, museum curators, historians, and anthropologists gathered at Northern Arizona University Cline Library in Flagstaff, Arizona. The participants included representatives from 15 Native American, First Nation, and Aboriginal communities. The group met to identify best professional practices for culturally responsive care and use of American Indian archival materials.

Recent efforts to ensure the survival of cultural diversity in a globalized world have led to efforts to preserve, revitalize, and continue craft traditions in marginal communities. This article records an effort to support the distinctive Dai culture in the province of Yunnan, China, by first establishing an archive of documents, photographs, and oral records of the traditions of a Dai community in the county of Menglian and following that by reviving and expanding the traditional weaving carried out by Dai women. It shows the complexity of this kind of activity, the need to encourage younger members of the community to learn the distinctive techniques of weaving and to develop a niche market for its products. Group crafts and traditions have often developed and varied over centuries; further adaptations may be needed to restore viability. Reinstatement of quality improved its value by adopting wider looms, better dyeing techniques, higher quality thread, and by encouraging new creative efforts in the development of the final product, thus providing better economic returns to the weavers and the community in general. In providing an exemplary process for isolated and dispirited communities to improve their economic circumstances and reinvigorate their ethnic traditions, it demonstrates the significant contribution that nongovernmental organizations can make to this kind of work.

This article considers the measures being taken in Bhutan to support the cultural practices and traditions of weaving as Bhutan rapidly moves to modernize. Woven cloth is one of a number of artisan practices in Bhutan that contribute to a unique body of intangible cultural heritage, and a distinctive and instantly recognizable Bhutanese identity. Cloth and cloth production have come to have significant influence on the cultural, socioeconomic and political, as well as the ceremonial and religious life of the people of Bhutan. However with modernization and an increasingly global outlook, many socioeconomic transformations are taking place, challenging traditional cultural practices to remain relevant and viable to younger generations. Bhutan offers a unique case study as a country engaging only relatively recently with globalization after a long history of cultural isolation. Bhutan also offers up a unique policy response to modernization, its Gross National Happiness (GNH) measure, which attempts to embody a strong social, cultural, and environmental imperative within the development process. This article will analyze the various measures taking place to maintain cultural identity and cultural practices within the context of development policy and practice, and will link this discussion to measures and approaches taking place at an international level by agencies such as UNESCO.

Discussions about looted antiquities often focus on large, culturally and monetarily valuable items. Nevertheless, it is clear that mundane small finds, which sell for relatively small amounts, account for a large portion of the global market in antiquities. This article highlights two types of small artifacts—namely, cylinder seals and coins, presumed to come from Syria and Iraq and offered for sale by online vendors. We argue that the number of cylinder seals and coins sold on the Internet has increased steadily since 2011, reaching a peak in 2016–17. This shows that the trade in Iraqi and Syrian antiquities has shifted from big-ticket items sold in traditional brick-and-mortar shops to small items readily available on the Internet for modest prices. The continuing growth of the online market in antiquities is having a devastating effect on the archaeological sites in Iraq and Syria as increasing demand fuels further looting in the region.

The Sultanate of Oman has enacted a modern and detailed statute protecting its cultural heritage. It is one of the newest and most modern pieces of legislation within the Arab world and provides broad protection for the rich cultural heritage of the country. The enactment of the statute and its application to protect culture and the nation's cultural heritage became an important political aim, and the year 1994 was officially declared as the “Year of National Heritage”.

This article examines the duties of diligence of lawyers when handling art-related matters. Due diligence is paramount to any activity in the art market and a key element in ascertaining ownership, authenticity or provenance. In particular, it is a benchmark to help determine the existence of possible criminal activities, including money laundering, terrorism financing or document forgery, to which the art market is regularly exposed. The question arises as to the obligations incumbent to art lawyers who are privileged witnesses of the functioning of the art market. Such obligations include in particular the duty to enquire on the particularities of a transaction, the duty to terminate a mandate or the duty to report any suspicious transaction under threat of civil or criminal sanctions. A survey has shown that art law specialists would welcome more guidance in the form of tailored regulations or professional guidelines.

This article offers a critical appraisal of the evolution of Italian cultural heritage law with respect to issues of colonial and war restitution and of control over the import of potentially trafficked cultural property. As Italy is usually considered a “source country” and a victim of historical depredations, a form of “selective blindness” to its colonial past and to its role at the receiving end of both past and current misappropriations of cultural objects is discussed. Some recent restitutions of cultural property taken in times of colonial occupation are also analyzed as signs of a possible change in policy and practice, but the article also highlights the features of political expediency that have influenced them as well as the many legal and practical obstacles still to be faced by restitution and repatriation claims. Finally, the potential effects of recent (mostly international) inputs on Italy’s cultural heritage policy are presented.

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.

The Russian Federal Law on Cultural Valuables Displacedto the USSR as a Result of the Second World War and Located on the Territoryof the Russian Federation purports to establish the legal basisfor the Russian state to hold permanent title to the vast majority of thecultural valuables removed from Germany to the Soviet Union at the end of WorldWar II. Russia claims that the cultural objects seized by the Soviet Unionconstitute “compensatory restitution” for the hundreds ofthousands of cultural and artistic valuables seized or destroyed by the Nazisduring the war. This article assesses the compatibility of the Russian claimwith relevant international law. It does so by tracing the development of theinternational antiplunder legal regime. It then assesses the Russian claim withrespect to three categories of cultural valuables, based on prewar ownership:property belonging to private persons and organizations, property belonging tononenemy states, and property belonging to enemy states (Axis powers).“Compensatory restitution” does not exist as a category orprinciple in international law, so the analysis focuses on the legal conceptthat is most similar and therefore of potential relevance, restitution in kind.If restitution in kind is impermissible under international law, then thebroader “compensatory restitution” is, with even greaterforce, also impermissible. The key finding is that international law does notpermit “compensatory restitution,” nor does it permitunilateral seizures of cultural objects under some broader notion ofcompensation.

This article examines the rationale for restricting the international artistic patrimony. The meaning of national patrimony is analysed, and rationales for state funding and interventions in the art market are analysed in light of the nonprivate benefits that this category of art produces. Distributional concerns about the international movement of art are considered. The second part of the article provides a taxonomy of restrictions used to prevent art objects leaving a nation, namely export restrictions, import regulations, and tax policies and incentives.

This article examines the trajectory and fate of Delhi’s Imperial Capital Cities nomination, submitted to the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) in 2015 for inscription on the World Heritage List. I employ the dossier and events surrounding its withdrawal to reveal the political imbrications of urban conservation, international institutions, neoliberal governance, and colonial histories. First, I underscore the prominence of India as a member of the World Heritage Committee and its efforts to secure an increasing number of UNESCO properties. Second, I situate the dossier within the ambit of neoliberal governance that recalibrates and promotes urban heritage preservation, while similarly encouraging development and economic growth. Building upon this point, I consider how sustained government efforts to reframe Delhi as a “global city,” coupled with the identification of Delhi’s imperial capitals with Mughal and British rule, resulted in the dossier’s withdrawal. Third, the episode reveals tensions in this specific political moment over contemporary perceptions of imperial occupation and “foreign” empires, which plagued the dossier from the outset and continue to reverberate today. Finally, there are lessons to be learned for urban heritage in India and Asian heritage in general, outside the narrow purview of European cities, so many of which are already listed as World Heritage.