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 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.

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.

Concepts of memory—specifically notions of collective memory—are associated in heritage studies with the central idea of authenticity. In this article I review what is relevant in the psychology of memory to these discourses, and reflect on this association of collective memory and authenticity in heritage studies, notably in the 1994 Nara Document on Authenticity. Concepts of time are central to this review. The idea of world heritage is, it is suggested, a future-oriented ideal for a common humanity. The metaphorical underpinnings of our vernacular uses of time-concepts, such as past and future, are examined. Psychological considerations of memory as retrieval or reconstruction are then outlined. The distinction between kinds of memory, notably episodic and semantic memory, is then presented. These, it is argued, are building blocks for collective memory, which, in turn, is the seedbed for the underemphasized but potent idea of collective imagination. If the primary function of memory is actually oriented to the future, then imagination is what puts kinds of memory to work in both predicting and creating the future. Our ability to imagine—to mentally project forward—is heavily dependent on what we know—that is, on semantic memory. The article concludes with some reflections on the policy implications of this analysis for the visitor to world heritage sites.

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.

This article considers the “commons” in relationship to contemporary dance in the United Kingdom. I highlight the norms and expectations that shape the sharing of dance in this context by outlining four implicit rules that govern circulation and ownership. I go on to highlight how dance’s circulation outside of legal structures is in part due to its ontology through the examination of choreographer and visual artist Florence Peake’s work RITE (2018) and its relationship to choreographer Vaslav Nijinsky’s Le Sacre du printemps (The Rite of Spring) (1913).

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.

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.

In the profoundly changing and dynamic world of contemporary audiovisual media, what has remained surprisingly unaffected is regulation. In the European Union, the new Audiovisual Media Services Directive (AVMS), proposed by the European Commission on 13 December 2005, should allegedly rectify this situation. Amending the existing Television without Frontiers Directive, it should offer a “fresh approach” and meet the challenge of appropriately regulating media in a complex environment. It is meant to achieve a balance between the free circulation of TV broadcast and new audiovisual media and the preservation of values of cultural identity and diversity, while respecting the principles of subsidiarity and proportionality inherent to the European Community (EC). This paper examines whether and how the changes envisaged to the EC audiovisual media regime might influence cultural diversity in Europe. It addresses subseqently the question of whether the new AVMS properly safeguards the balance between competition and the public interest in this regard, or whether cultural diversity remains a mere political banner.Acknowledgements: The present study emerged from my work for the project “eDiversity: The Legal Protection of Cultural Diversity in a Digital Networked Environment,” part of the Swiss National Centre for Competence in Research (NCCR): Trade Regulation. This article would not have been possible without the previous work done by Christoph Beat Graber and his valuable comments. Further thanks go to Miriam Sahlfeld for critical feedback on earlier drafts and Susan Kaplan for improving the language. Any errors of fact or interpretation are my own.

On 30 September 2015, the government of Eritrea issued Proclamation no. 177/2015, the Cultural and Natural Heritage Proclamation of Eritrea, to govern the country’s cultural and natural heritage. Instrumental in the inscription of the nation’s capital, Asmara, in the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization’s World Heritage List, the Proclamation simultaneously governs cultural (tangible and intangible) and natural heritage. The author, the main drafter of the Proclamation, discusses issues and alternatives that were debated during the drafting process, lists the key issues in relation to implementation of the Proclamation, and suggests recommendations on the way forward.

The revitalization of fermentation projects during COVID-19 raises questions about the preservation of the pandemic’s material and ephemeral effects – a topic that heritage policy is well equipped to engage. These activities also emphasize the necessity of engaging with heritage practices as a kind of care, encompassing both methods of safekeeping and practices of empathy. In addition, heritage ferments prove “good to think” around themes of loss and preservation, the interpretation of novel viruses through traditional food practices, and the coupling of heritage to microbes. Connecting microbes with heritage allows us to consider points of overlap: as bearers of patrimony with cultural and material lineages, as central to heritage tastes, and as open to geographical indications or other protections to further a kind of microbial resource management. Despite the pandemic’s devastating impact, consideration of heritage ferments points to both emancipatory and constraining outcomes for our post-pandemic future.

In October 1997 the Times of London announced the sale by auction of fourteen hundred gold coins that formed part of the hoard lost by Clive of India when the East Indiaman Dodington was wrecked in Algoa Bay on July 17, 1755. The wreck and its contents lie within South African territorial waters and are protected by South African heritage legislation. Very little gold has ever been reported recovered, despite ongoing excavations, and only a single permit has been issued for the export and sale of twenty–one gold coins. This article will consider the legal steps taken to repatriate the coins, and the difficulties encountered when taking such steps before a foreign court. It evaluates the extent to which existing international conventions, including the recently adopted UNESCO Convention on the Protection of Underwater Cultural Heritage, are able to assist states in repatriating stolen or illegally exported underwater cultural heritage.