Law Commons^™

Looted Cultural Objects, Elena Baylis

Articles

In the United States, Europe, and elsewhere, museums are in possession of cultural objects that were unethically taken from their countries and communities of origin under the auspices of colonialism. For many years, the art world considered such holdings unexceptional. Now, a longstanding movement to decolonize museums is gaining momentum, and some museums are reconsidering their collections. Presently, whether to return such looted foreign cultural objects is typically a voluntary choice for individual museums to make, not a legal obligation. Modern treaties and statutes protecting cultural property apply only prospectively, to items stolen or illegally exported after their effective dates. …

Destruction Of Cultural Heritage As A Violation Of Human Rights: Application Of The Alien Tort Statute, Emily T. Behzadi

Faculty Scholarship

In recent years, armed conflicts around the world have occasioned widespread destruction of cultural heritage sites. From the demolition of Palmyra in the Syrian Arab Republic to the destruction of Sufri Shrines in Mali, the intentional despoliation of these important cultural heritage sites is not only an uncontroverted violation of international law but a form of cultural genocide. The destruction of cultural heritage profoundly impacts citizenry on a local, national, and global level. Cultural heritage is an expression of fundamental and universally recognized human rights, including rights to freedom of expression, freedom of thought, freedom of conscience and religion, and …

The Socialization Of Human Rights As An Inroad To Protect Sacred Space, Leonard Hammer

Biennial Conference: The Social Practice of Human Rights

Serious problems exist for cultural heritage protection, and these problems are even more serious when accounting for the protection of sacred space and holy places. The lack of effectiveness of the majority of existing international norms and institutions will be reviewed in this paper, which shall then turn to potential sources for entrenching protection of scared space within states.

The paper shall rely on the human right to freedom of religion or belief as the basis for upholding sacred space given an emerging broader understanding of the right within the human rights framework.

The paper shall principally focus on the …

The Criminalisation Of The Illicit Trade In Cultural Property, Ana Filipa Vrdoljak

Ana Filipa Vrdoljak

This chapter considers the criminalisation of illicit traffic of cultural objects in international law and its impact for domestic law. The regulation of the trade in cultural objects has long been resisted in so-called market States, which host major auction houses and art and antiquities dealers. The lobbying was particularly directed against the enforcement of foreign public laws covering export controls in domestic courts. However, the Security Council’s adoption of resolutions that condemned the pillage of Iraqi and Syrian cultural sites has transformed this debate. These resolutions enunciate an obligation to prosecute in domestic courts which is covers all UN …

International Exchange And Trade In Cultural Objects, Ana Filipa Vrdoljak

Ana Filipa Vrdoljak

The legal protection of movable cultural heritage at the international level has been defined by a perennial tug-of-war between forces promoting international exchange and those seeking regulation of the transfer of the cultural objects. Shifts over the last century in how the balance between these twin aims is achieved reflect changes in the composition of Member States of intergovernmental organizations and their corresponding changing priorities. In the early twentieth century, the balance fostered under the League of Nations favored a cosmopolitan view promoting the circulation and interchange of cultural material to further knowledge and mutual understanding between peoples. The balance …

Challenges For International Cultural Heritage Law, Ana Filipa Vrdoljak

Ana Filipa Vrdoljak

The period from the shelling of Dubrovnik, Sarajevo and Mostar in the 1990s to the bombardment of Homs and Aleppo in the 2010s, witnessed the significant expansion of interventionist activities by the international community and then their gradual contraction in this new century. The factors that fostered the cosmopolitan drive during this brief period had a positive impact on the protection of cultural heritage during armed conflict and peacetime. It also puts into stark relief the perpetual challenges facing the legal protection of cultural heritage at the international level, which forms the core of this chapter. In this first part, …

Human Rights And Culture Heritage In International Law, Ana Filipa Vrdoljak

Ana Filipa Vrdoljak

Regional and international conflicts defined as a so-called ‘clash of civilisations’, civil conflicts from Central and South America, to former Yugoslavia, from the north Africa and the Middle East to Southeast Asia, and discrimination against and persecution of vulnerable individuals within ethnic or religious communities, appear to indicate tensions between human rights and culture at all levels of society, from the global to the local, from the collective to the individual. Despite the growing cognisance of these cleavages, the international community rather than suppressing cultural, ethnic or religious differences, has actively promoted the importance of cultural diversity and religious tolerance …

King Tut And Tahrir Square: The Egyptian Revolution Of 2011 And The Advantage Of Viewing Cultural Heritage Destruction Through A Right To Culture Lens, Zoe Niesel

Faculty Articles

No abstract provided.

Genocide And Restitution: Ensuring Each Group's Contribution To Humanity, Ana Filipa Vrdoljak

Ana Filipa Vrdoljak

The protection of minorities in modern international law is intimately connected with and fueled the recognition of the crimes of persecution and genocide. Minority protection represented the proactive component of the international efforts to ensure the contribution of certain groups to the cultural heritage of humankind. Prohibition and prosecution of persecution and genocide represented the reactive element of these same efforts. The restitution of cultural property to persecuted groups by the international community was recognition that their ownership and control of these physical manifestations was necessary for the realization of this purpose.

In this paper, I consider the emergence, contraction …

Silencing The Silk Road: China's Language Policy In The Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, Aurora Elizabeth Bewicke

San Diego International Law Journal

As part of its push for mono-culturalism throughout China in general, and in the XUAR in particular, China's language policy is at the forefront of what some have labeled China's program of "cultural genocide." While most agree that this provocative terminology is overstated, China's language policy may well be at the root of various human rights violations. Part II of this article will describe the historical context and modern realities of China's language policy in the XUAR, which is compromised of both overt policies in the form of laws, regulations, and policy statements as well as more covert policies, which …

Beyond State Sovereignty: The Protection Of Cultural Heritage As A Shared Interest Of Humanity, Francesco Francioni

Michigan Journal of International Law

In this paper the author will try to explore the topic from a different perspective: i.e. the emergence of cultural heritage as part of the shared interest of humanity, with the consequent need for international law to safeguard it in its material and living manifestations, including the cultural communities that create, perform and maintain it. Culture in itself is not extraneous to the formation of the modern nation State. Especially in the history of nineteenth century Europe, culture as language, religion, literary and artistic traditions provided the cement and the legitimizing element to support the claim to independent statehood.