This article examines the events leading up to, surrounding, and following UNESCO’s controversial removal of Germany’s Dresden Elbe Valley from the World Heritage List in 2009. At the heart of the controversy lay the construction of a new four-lane bridge, the Waldschlößchen Bridge, that would cut through scenic meadows, destroying long-protected vistas and changing the city’s cultural landscape. Although supported by German court decisions and local public opinion polls, the bridge has been denounced by many as an eyesore and an affront to the ideals of World Heritage. Yet despite the bridge, Dresden supposedly maintains World Heritage worthiness, even if it no longer enjoys that title. The author attempts to make sense of these contradictions in order to discover lessons applicable to the World Heritage program as a whole.

This article considers the role of recently adopted human rights-based policies in the context of preparations for the world heritage nomination of Bagan in Myanmar. Several conceptual, political, and practical factors influence the way in which such policies can be implemented. Conceptually, conflicting interpretations of the meaning of certain categories of human rights—most notably, cultural, development, and land rights—create ambiguity about who has rights to what. Politically, multilateral and bilateral negotiations between states parties inform whether and how human rights-based policies are enforced. On a practical level, implementation of such policies may be challenged by the low legal and administrative capacity of the state of Myanmar. Taking account of these factors, it is argued that human rights-based approaches can provide certain valuable insights but remain subject to serious limitations.

Although on-the-ground preservation and policing is a major component of our international efforts to prevent the looting and trafficking of antiquities, the expectation placed on source countries may be beyond their capacity. This dependence on developing world infrastructure and policing may challenge our ability to effectively regulate this illicit trade. Using case studies generated from fieldwork in Belize and Bolivia, this paper discusses a number of these challenges to effective policy and offers some suggestions for future regulatory development.

In the absence of specific policies that address the digitization of Pacific cultural collections, it is important to document the practices of Australian museum professionals and cultural experts who deal with close to one-fifth of Pacific cultural objects held in museums. Interviews with 17 museum professionals and cultural experts in Australia help advance reflective practice relating to digitizing Pacific collections. Drawing on principles enshrined in international, regional, and Australian policies and protocols relating to the management of indigenous collections, they favor responsible digitization based on consultation with source and diasporic communities. In order to consult across a region with multiple languages and cultures when time and resources are limited, they begin with areas they know best and when possible, work with curators of Pacific backgrounds. Some practicalities of publishing and protecting digitized images online revolve around validating information about the artifact and going beyond copyright to respect traditional knowledge.

The idea that the indigenous peoples of the Caribbean islands became extinct has until recently dominated scholarly discourse and popular awareness. This “extinction” narrative served to justify the appropriation of indigenous lands during the colonial period, and its legacy continued into post-independence. In recent years, these misconceptions have been put under increasing scrutiny, not only by archaeological, historical, and ethnographic research but also, more importantly, by communities themselves. In Dominica, Saint Vincent, and Trinidad, communities are contesting negative stereotypes, reasserting their presence, and agitating for their human rights in the post-colonial islands states. This article discusses the acquisition of indigenous rights by descendant communities in the eastern Caribbean. It reveals the various degrees to which communities have gained state recognition and illustrates that while progress has been made in relation to recognition and cultural rights for communities in the islands, issues remain in relation to land security.

“Traditional” foodways are represented as an important part of cultural heritage in Europe. Two legal instruments aim to play a role in safeguarding them—namely, the Traditional Specialties Guaranteed (TSG) scheme and the 2003 UNESCO Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage. These instruments are sometimes used in parallel—for example, in the TSG registration for “Pizza Napoletana” and the nomination of “the art of Neapolitan ‘pizzaiuolo’” to one of the lists of the Convention. While recognizing the important role of state actors in this process, this article proposes going beyond a simple “misappropriation” thesis to look at the possible economic effects of registration and inscription.

The United Kingdom’s Spoliation Advisory Panel hears claims for cultural objects held in museum collections of which their original owners lost possession during the Nazi era. The Panel aims to achieve “fair and just” solutions for the parties and was created in response to the strong impetus to return cultural objects lost by Jewish owners during the Nazi era. This article argues that understanding the rationale for this claims process and the choice of remedies is essential for achieving such just and fair solutions, specifically whether the Panel aims to redress the past injustices of Hitler’s tyranny, return objects to their “rightful owners,” or prevent the public’s unjust enrichment from access to objects “tainted” by their Nazi association. If it aims to return cultural objects to their rightful owners or to strip museums of unjust gains, it is only a small step to allowing moral claims by other claimant groups whose cultural objects reside in national museums.

The role of ethical rules and codes of conduct in the field of art law and international protection of cultural property, together with the adoption of the relevant international conventions, has constantly increased in the last decades. This article considers the main codes of conduct drafted by international organizations as well as international, national, public, and private institutions, federations, and associations. The focus is on their influence on international trade as instruments of art market regulation. Specific attention is paid to the interaction with the private international law approach and to a survey of both direct and indirect effects of these rules on the international circulation of cultural property.

Blanket ownership laws, export restrictions, and the criminal law of market nations are the default legal strategies currently used by nations of origin to prevent the looting of archaeological sites. Although they have been remarkably successful at achieving the return of looted objects, they may not be the best strategies to maximize the recording and preservation of archaeological context. In England and Wales a more permissive legal regime broadly applied and adopted by the public at large has produced dramatically better results than the strong prescriptive regime of Scotland, which can be easily ignored.

This article attempts to clear up any misconceptions of the cultural policy framework in England and Wales. It accounts for the legal position accorded undiscovered portable antiquities, and describes how this legal framework is perfected by a voluntary program called the Portable Antiquities Scheme (PAS). This approach stands in stark contrast to Scotland, which has used a legal strategy adopted by most other nations of origin.

The domestic legal framework for portable antiquities in England and Wales is unique and differs from the typical approach. Coupled with the PAS, this legal structure has resulted in a better cultural policy, which leads to less looting of important archaeological sites, allows for a tailored cultural policy, and has produced more data and contextual information with which to conduct historical and archaeological research on an unprecedented scale. Compensating finders of antiquities may even preclude an illicit market in antiquities so long as this compensation is substantially similar to the market price of the object and effectively excludes looters from this reward system. Although the precise number of found versus looted objects that appear on the market is open to much speculation, an effective recording system is essential to ensure that individuals who find objects are encouraged to report them.

This article explores critical directions in the study of cultural heritage and, in particular, food heritage research. Its goal is to deliver insight into local perspectives produced outside mainstream heritage organizations. Strategies implemented jointly by peasant farmers of rural Peru and non-governmental organizations committed to promoting cultural resurgence show how food discloses the symbiotic relation between nature and culture in these indigenous worlds, and allows for claims grounded in social, political, and economic imaginaries. The initiatives described in this article develop within transnational networks of partners and interlocutors but outside of universalist pretensions. They constitute food heritage that differs from that of global cultural actors such as the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization and the United Nations by addressing only the needs of local communities and not complying with mechanisms that bring prestige and revenues to states and powerful cultural entrepreneurs. Globally nurtured, but locally implemented, these locally based initiatives seek out and take advantage of opportunities in strategic, proactive fashions.

Because of their status of res nullius—owned by no one—property theory is underdeveloped in regard to wildlife. In this article, wildlife is seen to be sometimes subject to a shadow ownership by class interests in society. Hunters accuse protected wolves of being the “pets” or “property” of an urban-based conservationist middle class. This phenomenon fragments the common fauna and undermines responsibility taking and policy compliance for wildlife that is seen as being owned by an oppositional social class. Using an empirical case study of Swedish hunters, we show how responsibility for wildlife has become entangled with property rights. A historical materialist analysis reveals that hunters once experienced ownership of wildlife by the nobility as co-opting state coercive power. Today, however, aristocracy is replaced by a new elite class of conservationists. Noting the hunters’ tendency to evoke quasi-aristocratic virtues of ownership, we advance recommendations for an alternative approach. We appeal to deliberative democracy to promote the “communing” of wildlife across classes in fora that withstand co-optation by class interests.

This essay examines theories of value and property in relation to conceptions of morality, correct comportment, and their influences on Afro-Bahians subject to late twentieth- and early twenty-first-century cultural heritage initiatives in the Pelourinho neighborhood of Salvador, Bahia, Brazil. This urban space is the nation's most expressive site for the performance of Afro-Brazilian identity and the commemoration of tradition. In analyzing the role of morality in Pelourinho-based cultural property-making, I focus on popular critiques of heritage discourse to argue that, in conjuring a particular form of cultural heritage that bears a distinct resemblance to UNESCO's immaterial patrimony programs, the Bahian state has piggybacked on social scientific evaluations of local people's moral comportments in order to put together an archive of everyday life that exists as a standing reserve for histories of Brazil and the marketing of cultural heritage. This data produced in an effort to regulate the historical center has revolved around the state's evaluation of the moral probity and everyday habits of the Pelourinho's overwhelmingly Afro-Brazilian populace. The result is a conceptualization of cultural labor that emanates not from the capacities and struggles of producers, but from a decentered or distributed view of production, which I tie to the existence of this archive. Consumers, or visitors to the historical center, as well as historical archives thus play a critical role in this form of constructing property and understanding the sources and fungibility of labor in a global economy for multicultural difference that depends on an emphasis on futurity and market reflexivity.

Many institutions and organizations of professionals have promulgated 'codes' of ethics in recent years in order both to establish accepted practices of professionals in various disciplines and to deal with problems raised by the unique aspects of cultural heritage issues. The author follows the processes of formulation, role, influence, interpretation, and effectiveness of such codes, as well as their relationship to the legal system. While acknowledging that it is often difficult to enforce these codes, the author suggests that they serve a valuable role both in educating the members of the various organizations and the public and in establishing goals for which these professionals aspire.

Between the 1960s and 1980s, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) launched a number of international salvage campaigns at the behest of its member states, the most notable being the Nubian Monuments Campaign. Saving ancient monuments and discovering archaeological sites in Egypt and Sudan was viewed as a landmark in twentieth-century heritage conservation and international co-operation; it was never to be repeated again. Requests for assistance continued, yet the campaigns were configured as conservation missions rather than integrated field projects. In retrospect, this action delimited UNESCO’s goals to bridge education, science, and culture and, ultimately, impacted the potential of cross-cultural dialogue and partnerships afforded by archaeological field research. This article focuses on UNESCO’s International Campaign for the Safeguarding of Moenjodaro (1974–97) and traces the role of experts, both archaeological and hydrological, within UNESCO’s mission. It uncovers the organization’s handling of the monumental challenges and long-term effects of a multimillion-dollar salvage effort. In doing so, the article reveals the early role of prominent archaeologists Mortimer Wheeler and John Otis Brew, the ideological shift at UNESCO from archaeological research to monumentality and preservation, and the tensions that emerged as world heritage was reimagined.

The aim of this article is to examine how the requirement in the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization’s 2003 Convention for the Safeguarding of Intangible Cultural Heritage (ICHC) to ensure the effective involvement of local communities, groups, and individuals (as well as experts, centers of expertise, and research institutions) in the implementation of the Convention can be put into better effect in its international operation. Although examples exist of international treaties that involve non-governmental and other civil society bodies in their implementation at the international level, mostly with regard to Indigenous peoples, the mechanisms for such involvement are still underdeveloped and not wholly satisfactory. Since it has proved difficult to put community participation at the intergovernmental level into practice within the framework of the ICHC, the author seeks to identify approaches that can be usefully employed in the treaty—in particular, by considering participatory models found in other international treaty frameworks in the heritage and environmental protection law fields.

In the United States, consideration of archaeological ethics has been relatively recent and concerned primarily with defining professionalism. By declaring that the past is a public heritage, claiming that archaeologists should be its stewards, and moving toward a positivist scientific approach, American archaeology has alienated its public. Prompted by pressure from Native Americans on the reburial issue, the Society for American Archaeology has attempted to address the problems by proposing an ethics code, but outsiders are likely to see the contradictions between stated principles and practice. These issues are examined from the perspective of the reburial issues, offering the possibility that an ethnocritical archaeology might provide mechanisms that will allow archaeologists to be more truly accountable and, in the long term, better stewards of the past.

Metal detecting is a popular hobby in England and Wales, and, since 1997, over 1.3 million finds have been recorded by the Portable Antiquities Scheme (PAS), a scheme to encourage the voluntary recording of artifacts found by the public. The metal detector can be a useful archaeological tool when used lawfully and responsibly; however, it is also a tool that is used for illicit purposes by individuals and groups wishing to obtain artifacts from archaeological sites on which they have no permission to detect. Information on the number and nature of incidents of illicit metal detecting, however, is difficult to collate owing both to the nature of the crime and to the way it is recorded (or not) by law enforcement authorities. In this article, we examine the strengths and limitations of the available official and unofficial sources on illicit metal detecting in England and Wales and explore the potential they have to tell us about current trends in this form of heritage crime. The first unofficial source is a list of incidents reported to Historic England, which contains basic information on 276 incidents recorded between 2010 and 2017. The second source is the result of a survey of the PAS’s finds liaison officers regarding the extent to which they assisted law enforcement authorities for the years from 2015 to 2017. Both sources were then contrasted with a freedom of information request that was sent to all 49 police forces in the United Kingdom. Although there are some synergies between the unofficial and official sources, the lack of detail in any one dataset makes them of limited use in demonstrating trends in the macro- and micro-scales of time and place. Accordingly, many of the issues highlighted in this article could be resolved by devising a better system for police record keeping of metal detecting offences.

Legal systems which triage protection to cultural relics based on a relic grading system have been adopted by several countries. This article examines the implementation of such a relic grading framework by the People's Republic of China. The current state of the law is summarized, and a recent criminal trial is described to illustrate the role the grading system plays within the law. The factors involved in defining the grades of cultural relics are then discussed in context of a cultural relic structural framework, with emphasis to both the state values that they serve and their ability to promote the objective of cultural property protection. The analysis highlights the problems and general considerations with the use of relic grading systems as a means to protect a large number of relics with finite resources.