I have been asked to write personally of John [Merryman]. Not of him as scholar, educator, author, nor even as father of the fields of art and cultural property law, but as the person who did these things, and more. To present an inclusive, all-embracing picture of John, the universalist, both in himself and what he has done.

First, I owe my interest, career, and whatever contributions I have made as lawyer, teacher, and writer on art and cultural property law to John. Nearly 30 years ago, as a corporate litigator and neophyte collector interested in the connection between art and law, I read Law Ethics and the Visual Arts.1 In chapters entitled “Plunder, Destruction, and Reparation” and “An Artist’s Life,” I was taken by its commitment to culture, its questions—such as, Can art be more valuable than a life?—and its overarching ethical yet concrete approach to them. I became a fledgling in the fields of art and cultural property law. A few years later I met John at a conference in Amsterdam. He became a mentor, model, and friend.

It is an honor to be invited to speak at this symposium, both for the kind invitation to address this society, and for the opportunity to honor an esteemed scholar from my alma mater, Stanford.

I come to this symposium, not as an expert in cultural property, but as an inhabitant of the field of biotechnology and intellectual property law. Although the view from a distance can provide different perspectives, it lacks the layers of understanding and meaning that are accumulated by those who are steeped in the field. I cannot possibly hope to offer solutions to issues with which many brilliant minds have spent a lifetime grappling. Thus, I temper my comments with the caution appropriate for the exercise. What I can do is offer comparisons from the treatment of human cells, as well as observations I have suggested in that context.

John Henry Merryman’s seminal writings established the twin poles of nationalism and internationalism, which have framed debates over cultural patrimony for three decades. He has long advocated a cosmopolitan ideal of sharing the world’s artistic heritage as the best course for preservation, knowledge, and public access. Although the tensions between national ownership and universal circulation frequently put countries and museums at odds, above all when it comes to ancient art and archaeological objects, a middle ground has been found that can bridge the gap. This article reviews several recent MOUs that U.S. museums and cultural ministries in Italy, Greece, and Turkey have established for exhibition loans and research collaborations. The J. Paul Getty Museum’s experiences in implementing four international cultural agreements illuminate how sharing works in practice, and the benefits (and costs) of an object-oriented approach to cultural diplomacy.

Immovable cultural heritage is still at risk of being neglected by the state responsible for heritage sites, by urban planning of big cities, and by armed conflicts around the world. Normally, because it is immovable, the international community cannot do very much. It can ban the trade of items that became movable property when detached from buildings or illegally excavated in certain protected sites. In other cases, it is the responsibility of the national state to care for cultural heritage and cultural objects. International conventions may furnish help and advice and provide for monitoring any risk to the cultural heritage of state parties.

The international community is concerned about criminal activity involving cultural property and is promoting the use of the United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime to combat looting and trafficking of cultural property. This article discusses how the Convention may be applied, outlines some of the intentions of UN member states with regard to cultural property crime, and the role of the UN Office on Drugs and Crime. It is suggested that cultural property stakeholders should scrutinize this developing effort, particularly in the areas of UNTOC application to specific cultural property cases and the collection and analysis of data specifically to address the connections between cultural property and transnational organized crime.

This article aims to examine how far our experience of implementing UNESCO’s Intangible Heritage Convention, which was adopted in 2003 and entered into force in April 2006, over the last seven years has transformed our understanding of intangible cultural heritage and of its safeguarding. There have been, of course, both positive and negative impacts thus far as well as both unexpected and, thus far, unknown outcomes. The Convention broke new ground, introducing new terminology and new definitions of existing terms and requiring a reexamination of some approaches to international and national law making and policymaking. When considering the impact of the 2003 Convention internationally, we need to look, inter alia, at its impact on international policymaking (including cultural policy, the sustainable development agenda and indigenous rights), related developments in other areas of international law (including human rights and environmental law), and the way in which states treat shared heritage that crosses international frontiers. On the national level, we should consider how the Convention may have contributed to creating a new paradigm for identifying and safeguarding intangible cultural heritage (ICH), shifting the focus of significance, redefining the role of non-state actors vis-à-vis state authorities in this process and, even, moving the idea of national heritage away from a purely state-driven concept. Important questions to consider include whether the Convention has resulted in the development of new national policy strategies for (a) promoting the function of ICH in society and (b) integrating ICH into planning and development programs and how effectively Parties have managed to engage communities, groups, and individuals in the aforementioned activities.

This article explores the history of collecting and dealing in non-Western cultural objects—primarily from the Pacific Islands—from the earliest explorers to the modern auction houses. It considers international and domestic laws relating to indigenous cultural material that might be seen as religious or sacred in character and concludes that while these rules clearly influence both private and institutional practices they fall short of legally impacting the functioning of otherwise lawful markets.

The recognition of the rights of indigenous peoples has been on the political agenda in Latin America since the 1980s, although it has not always been reflected in the legal systems of the countries in the region. Most of them have passed laws that grant legal recognition to indigenous communities and have recognized their rights in the national constitutions. However, these rules do not always refer to some particular aspects of the indigenous culture, such as those related to their cultural heritage. In general, the archaeological remains are ruled by specific laws that do not consider, or vaguely mention, the indigenous peoples’ rights and their participation in the decision-making process. As a result of the lack of consistency between the indigenous and cultural heritage laws in most countries, the participation of indigenous peoples in heritage management is still exceptional.

This study introduces the oldest photographs of Seoul’s ruins, which have been recycled for more than a century in a wide variety of print sources, such as travelogues, postcards, museum catalogs, and guidebooks. Regardless of the medium, the aesthetic, disciplinary, and cultural biases practiced by the first generation of globe-trotters, diplomats, and commercial photographers to arrive in the Korean peninsula resulted in the mass distribution of the most “picturesque” monuments, such as Buddhist art and architecture, palaces, and fortress gates targeting the “tourist gaze.” By analyzing a select number of stock images of architectural landscapes, which have served as the “scenic” backdrop for framing “native types,” currently part of museum collections and photographic archives, the article will illustrate how such exoticized and romanticized visions of the conquered “Hermit Kingdom” trapped in time and space have continued to impact the trajectory of heritage management policies and the hierarchical ranking system of national treasures and famous places in postwar South Korea.

Digital technologies and the Internet in particular have transformed the ways we create, distribute, use, reuse, and consume cultural content; have impacted the workings of the cultural industries, and more generally the processes of making, experiencing, and remembering culture in local and global spaces. Yet, few of these, often profound, transformations have found reflection in law and institutional design. Cultural policy toolkits, in particular at the international level, are still very much offline and analog and conceive of culture as static property linked to national sovereignty and state boundaries. The article describes this state of affairs and asks the key question of whether there is a need to reform global cultural law and policy and if yes, what the essential elements of such a reform should be. The article is informed by the ongoing and vibrant digital copyright and creativity discourse1 but seeks to address also the less discussed, non–intellectual property tools of the cultural policy package. It thematizes the complexity and the interconnectedness of different fields of policymaking, as various decisions critical to cultural processes are made by institutions without cultural mandate. While this problem is not entirely new and is naturally triggered by the intrinsic duality of cultural goods and services, the article argues that the digital networked environment has only accentuated complexity, spillover effects, and unintended consequences. The question is how to navigate this newly created and profoundly fluid space, so as to ensure the preservation and sustainable provision of culture. The article hopes to contribute to the process of finding answers to this taxing question by identifying a few essential elements that need to be taken into consideration when designing future-oriented cultural policy.

The global digital environment and the continuous expansion of digital information about cultural property necessitate a reevaluation of John Henry Merryman’s tripartite typology of cultural property ideals. Merryman put forth those ideals, namely 1.) ensuring the physical preservation of cultural property, 2.) protecting its even-handed interpretation, and 3.) offering public access to cultural property, as the main bases for the settlement of international cultural property disputes. However, new questions have arisen about the status of cultural property in an era when detailed virtual copies of cultural property are instantaneously available. For example, to what extent is digitized cultural property data should itself be regarded as cultural property? This paper will address some of the ethical issues related to the physical preservation, interpretation, and access to this digitized cultural property data. It will conclude with an examination of another type of cultural heritage data: the increasing use of behavioral data about cultural property consumers and audiences as a marketing tool by cultural institutions. This ominous new turn in the commodification of cultural property, it will be suggested, identifies items of cultural significance not only as objects of ownership and sale, but also as a marketable entertainment experience.