Property Law and Real Estate Commons^™

Museum Exhibits Or Ill-Gotten Gains: A Legal And Philosophical Look At Cultural Property Law, Anthony E. Gambino

Fordham Undergraduate Law Review

The foundation of cultural property laws was laid at the Hague Convention on the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict. The convention, which usually revolved around the discussions on former laws of warfare, had to switch gears to respond to the Nazi’s new tactic of intentionally stealing or destroying cultural property as a means to demoralize the enemy. The convention’s focus was inclusivity, which defined cultural property as any “movable or immovable property of great importance to the cultural heritage of every people.”

However, that overly simplistic definition that intended to serve as a source of …