This article is concerned with the ways in which discourses of rights serve to destabilize indigenous logics when used for gains in the market. It does so through examining a Rastafarian tour group who uses their participation in the tourism market to challenge what they believe are infringed cultural property rights. As a means of commercially defending these rights, the group employs a discourse of indigeneity. In this process, they have gained partial recognition from the World Intellectual Property Organization and increasing acknowledgement from the Jamaican government. However, while the basis of indigeneity strongly supports the case of intellectual and cultural property rights, this recognition ultimately further identifies the group, and Rastafari in general, with Jamaica.

The meeting of experts in Warsaw is one of the activities marking the 20th anniversary of the Memory of the World (MoW) program. The events started on 1 April and were held throughout 2012, including a MoW Exhibition at the UNESCO headquarters that focused on items that are listed on MoW Register (national, regional, and international) and an international conference held 26–28 September 2012 in Vancouver, Canada, on Memory of the World in the Digital Age: Digitization and Preservation. The challenges and solutions relating to the impact of the technological advances for the preservation and accessibility of the documentary heritage have occupied the attention of UNESCO for some time, culminating in the adoption of the Charter on the Preservation of the Digital Heritage by the 32nd session of the General Conference of UNESCO on 17 October 2003.

Protocols in international law seem to be proliferating. Examples of official protocols at international law abound, from the 1967 Stockholm Protocol Regarding Developing Countries (amending the Berne Convention on copyright), to the 1997 Kyoto Protocol on climate change, to the recent Nagoya Protocol on Access and Benefit Sharing in 2010. But what exactly is a “protocol” compared to other international legal instruments, such as declarations and treaties? And why does there seem to be a flurry of new protocols today, in domains as vast as intellectual property and indigenous people's rights? On 19 August a new “working group” convened at the New York University School of Law to begin to study protocols, especially with an eye toward their use as a tool to protect indigenous cultural property—hence, the term “cultural protocols.” The working group is the brainchild of Dr. Jane Anderson of the University of Massachusetts and Professor Barton Beebe of the New York University School of Law.

Fourteen years after the 1995 UNIDROIT Convention came into force, the first special meeting as envisaged under Article 20 of the Convention was held at the UNESCO headquarters in Paris on 19 June 2012. Article 20 provides that “The President of the International Institute for the Unification of Private Law (UNIDROIT) may at regular intervals, or at any time at the request of five Contracting states, convene a special committee in order to review the practical operation of this Convention.” Appropriately, the first special committee meeting took place at UNESCO's head office, preceding by a day the second meeting of States Parties to the 1970 UNESCO Convention on the Means of Prohibiting and Preventing the Illicit Import, Export and Transfer of Ownership Cultural Property, which convened in Paris on 20–21 June 2012. The UNIDROIT Convention was initiated at the request of UNESCO to fill the gap in the 1970 Convention relating to the private law aspects of the return and restitution of stolen or illegally exported cultural property.

The author lays a blueprint for distinctions between legal and moral rules and socially accepted behavior, situations in which these distinctions set different standards of conduct, and the relationship among them. Several of the more common paradigms of cultural property disputes are then fit into the patterns of legal and moral rules and obligations, thus establishing a framework for the discussion of how to evaluate ethical or moral behaviors in varying circumstances. The author also considers the relevance of deontological and consequentialist arguments for the return of cultural property, as well as avoidance strategies by which a country of origin can make a claim for restitution while ignoring the long-term questions of the legitimacy, power, and responsibilities of national governments. The author concludes by emphasizing the difficulties in basing arguments concerning cultural property on moral evaluations and conclusions.

This paper investigates the relationship between international investment law and the protection of cultural heritage. Two questions arise in this connection. First, are investment agreements compatible with states' obligations to protect cultural heritage? Second, if internal measures aimed at protecting cultural heritage can be challenged by foreign investors, is mixed arbitration a suitable forum to protect public interests Indeed, it seems that the regime established according to investment treaties does not strike an appropriate balance between the different interests concerned. After giving a brief look at the legal framework protecting foreign investments, the conflict areas between investment treaty provisions and national cultural policies are explored through an empirical analysis of the recent arbitral jurisprudence concerning cultural heritage. This paper holds that jurisprudential balancing may not provide an adequate protection to cultural heritage; thus, cultural exceptions should be included in investment agreements.

Mamilla cemetery was one of the largest and most important Muslim cemeteries in Jerusalem. The plans to build a “Museum of Tolerance” in it led to heated protests and a prolonged legal procedure in Israel’s Supreme Court of Justice. In 2008, the court approved the plans and many hundreds of graves were exhumed. Through the available sources, including the court’s archival files, we discuss political, legal, and archaeological aspects of this case, focusing on ethics about cemeteries and descendant communities. The discussion shows that the Israel Antiquities Authority breached the court orders and that the treatment of the archaeological remains was biased. “Their” graves were destroyed, and the bones reburied in secret, while “our” remains in the same areas were carefully excavated and preserved. Tolerance to “our” heritage at the expense of “theirs” is intolerance.

I am grateful for the responses to the piece. With admirable concision, Professor Beebe has summarized the promise and perils of legal semiotics and the challenges ahead. He is right to note that any “moral, ethical, and political” argument can be broken down with the same tools used to break down legal argument; but one might be tempted to add that having done away with law's aura of authority and diminished the persuasive force of legal arguments may be reward enough for now, at least in the realm of cultural property argument.

The author sets out an assumption—that the law in the area of cultural heritage is unsettled. He uses this faulty assumption as a basis for criticizing the use of and reference to legal rules within the cultural heritage field. In his introduction Audi states that he will apply a “theoretical apparatus” derived from “legal reasoning as it relates to gaps, ambiguities, or conflicts in laws” but admits that this methodology is less appropriate for settled areas of the law. At this point he unwittingly undermines the premise of his article. He goes even further in attributing “more than a little bad faith behind lawyers and judges” who claim to be applying the law. He seems to confuse policy arguments, where admittedly commentators can offer conflicting views that seem to carry equal validity, with legal arguments. He also believes that the legal arguments cancel each other out as if a decision from a court or a statute that congress passes is on a par with arguments offered by those who favor or disapprove of the result.

This research responds to the recent destruction of cultural heritage in Nigeria during the protest against police brutality meted out on the populace by a unit of the Nigerian police force known as the Special Anti-Robbery Squad. This article uncovers issues implicated in the destruction of the Iga Idunganran, a national monument. Through a survey questionnaire, the article determines the perceptions of people about African traditional religion and the knowledge of people about the value and significance of heritage loss occasioned by the recent destruction of the palace. Findings reveal that many Nigerians are unaware of the value and significance of the palace as heritage that is essential to societal development. Many Nigerians are suffering from an identity crisis because of colonization. The Nigerian government has not fulfilled its role in protecting cultural heritage. The Nigerian government needs to put structures in place to implement its commitment at the national level.

In March 2013, the Barbier-Mueller collection of pre-Columbian art was auctioned at Sotheby’s Paris. This event ended with the sale of half of the works offered and generated a confrontation between six of the countries of origin of the artifacts, which were absolutely opposed to the sale, and the Sothebys’ Parisian branch. This article, taking the case described above as a reference, intends to analyze the ethical considerations and lawfulness implied in the buying and selling of cultural property at auction. With this purpose in mind, the arguments held by both parties in this disagreement are analyzed. At the same time, the efficacy of national laws, international conventions, and regulations is considered, mainly with reference to the use of principles and ethical codes that seem to be applied when the law has no jurisdiction.

In this transcript of an extended interview, Dame Siobhan Davies discusses her biography and oeuvre in the context of an enquiry into aspects of learning, transmission, and claims to ownership over the material that makes modern dance. The creative practice of contemporary dance makers offers an opportunity to describe the “coming into being” of both knowledge and persons in a unique domain, but one also connected to other areas of the arts and collaborative practice. Davies describes an approach to making dance that explicitly rejects two key notions: that the body merely performs what the mind creates and, thus, that the choreographer and the dancer are in a hierarchical relationship of control mirroring the control of mind over matter. She then describes how her creative processes with others have been increasingly shaped to allow non-proprietorial and non-hierarchical outcomes that are substantive to the art works themselves.