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The British punitive expedition of 1897 led to the theft and vandalization of the cultural heritage of the Benin kingdom. The plunder included more than 3,000 cultural objects made of bronzes, ivories, beads, and other objects, which were produced since the 1st century AD to commemorate historical moments, political transitions, and ritual purposes. This theft dishonoured the spiritual and ritual significance of these living cultural objects, and has turned them into museum artefacts. As international debates on restitution and the return of Benin Bronzes intensify, two pertinent questions which arise are: Who will be the custodians of the returned artefacts?; and How will they be conserved? In this article, we address these two questions through the lens of Benin customary laws and practices. We argue that within this local jurisprudence, the Emwin Arre– the living cultural heritage described above –belong to the Oba of Benin and should be returned to the royal Palace, where they will be preserved, protected, and shared with the present and future generations.
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Considering that the vast majority of the objects constituting Indigenous Peoples’ cultural heritage are now located outside their source communities, the restitution of cultural property has become a pressing issue among Indigenous Peoples worldwide and should be understood as part of Indigenous Peoples’ historical (as well as current) encounter with colonization and its consequences. As such, this article investigates whether international cultural heritage law offers any possibilities for successful repatriation and to what extent the shortcomings of the framework in place could be complemented by alternative dispute resolution (ADR) mechanisms and the new mandate of the Expert Mechanism on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (Expert Mechanism). First, crucial concepts in the repatriation debates are explained. Next the factual background of the case studies of the G’psgolox Totem Pole and Maaso Kova are presented. This is followed by a discussion of the most pertinent mechanisms of international cultural heritage law and the place of Indigenous Peoples’ rights within such a framework. Subsequently, the concept of ADR is introduced, and the details of the negotiation processes between the Haisla First Nation (Canada) and the Yaqui People (Mexico, the United States) – both with the Museum of Ethnography in Stockholm (Sweden) – are presented. Finally, the article evaluates to what extent ADR could be an appropriate mechanism for the settlement of disputes concerningIndigenous Peoples’ cultural property, andwhether the Expert Mechanism is a well-suited body for facilitating the process of repatriating Indigenous Peoples’ cultural heritage.
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This article analyses the case of the dispute over the return of the Aboriginal shield from the collection of the British Museum, which up to 2018 was believed to have come from the First Contact with the Aboriginal people made by the crew of captain James Cook. The arguments exchanged between the parties are studied from the perspective of the theory of hard cases. The claim for the return expressed by Rodney Kelly is supported mostly by the arguments based on justice, and both personal and cultural affiliation. The British Museum responded to the claim with results of research questioning the provenance of the shield. The relevance of the research is evaluated in the context of the symbolic significance of the case. The author believes that application of the theory of hard cases allows to broaden the debate beyond the scope of positive law.
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Restitution claims involving colonial cultural objects are usually said to lack a sound legal basis. These claims are instead perceived more often than not as belonging solely in the realm of ethics. This article, however, calls that perception into question. It argues for the existence of a more complex picture. It does so by bringing to the forefront the potential of the US courts to adjudicate restitution claims concerning colonial cultural objects. By analysing the largely unexplored 1900 exception of the Foreign Cultural Exchange Jurisdictional Immunity Clarification Act (2016), amending the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act’s (1976) expropriation exception, this article posits that the exception might hold the key for offering an alternative road in accessing justice. Being applicable to takings of a systematic nature against members of a targeted and vulnerable group which have taken place after 1900, this provision might provide legal recourse for those colonial takings which have occurred after the dawn of the 20th century.
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In January 2022 theAustrian government established an expert committee to study the colonial heritage in its federal museums. Although Austria is a country not considered to have an extensive colonial past, Austrian museums hold large collections of ethnographic objects and human remains that they acquired during the heydays of colonialism. This country report introduces the current restitution debate in Austria through a legal lens. It discusses the legal situation of cultural objects from colonial contexts and the instruments available to museums and the federal government to organize restitutions and formulate rules. From a comparative law perspective, the specific history of Austria might turn the currently-evolving Austrian approach into an interesting example for other countries with public holdings of cultural objects from colonial contexts but without a history of direct colonialism.
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The Bill of 3 July 2022 to recognize the alienability of goods linked to the Belgian State’s colonial past and to determine a legal framework for their restitution and return (“the Restitution Bill”) puts Belgium at the forefront of international restitutions of colonial collections. With the parliamentary approval, and therefore democratically backed adoption of the Restitution Bill, Belgium is about to write history by being the first country in the world with a legislative framework allowing for large-scale restitutions of colonial collections. The situation, however, is not all roses, as the new legislation keeps its scope quite narrow (only cultural objects from former Belgian colonies, and no archives or human remains) and excludes local communities within the State of origin from being involved in restitution proceedings. Moreover, the Bill’s initial draft had to be watered down significantly to give the Government maximum freedom in negotiating bilateral restitution agreements. The relative lack of procedural rules renders the process less transparent and more political. In sidestepping the issue, the actual restitution procedure will depend almost entirely on the terms of each of the bilateral agreements, thus giving more leeway to political squabbling.
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This article provides an overview of the state of legislation and the efforts toward the repatriation of colonial-looted cultural objects in England. It discusses the National Heritage Act, Charities Act, and general trust rules which make it challenging to deaccession any objects from museums in the United Kingdom, including and especially colonial-looted objects. It highlights how the UK’s former period of colonization resulted in vast holdings from these territories, but that the UK has yet to create a comprehensive policy on repatriation, despite numerous calls for return of several famous heritage objects, including the Maqdala treasures and the Benin Bronzes. This article sketches the powers of the current possessors – namely national, regional, and university museums. Finally, the article considers the many updates in the conversation surrounding colonial repatriation in 2022, from the debate at the House of Lords to potential changes to the National Heritage Act to the new Charities Act to the publication of Arts Council England’s guidelines for museums on restitution and repatriation.
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Recent developments in French and international laws concerning the return of cultural property from formerly colonized territories are particularly rich. Most States with large collections of non-European objects are now faced with claims from the countries from which these objects were transferred. France, after having long maintained a legal stance based on strict respect of the principle of inalienability of public collections, has recently changed its position statement. In 2017, in Ouagadougou, the President Emmanuel Macron said he was in favour of returning African heritage to Africa. Three years later, on 24 December 2020, the Parliament adopted a law that partially fulfilled the President’s wish, by identifying 27 objects for return to Benin and Senegal. As this article will explain, the law’s passage was fraught, and opinions continue to diverge on a case-by-case (or object-by-object) approach to return versus a generic statute. There are also questions about what drives the idea of return – from legal responsibility, to moral duty in view of French history, to contemporary politics and diplomacy.
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This article provides a broad overview of Indonesia’s current post-independence legislation and practice with respect to cultural heritage protection and repatriation. We highlight several challenges that hamper the effective implementation and enforcement of this framework, particularly in relation to repatriation processes of foreign-held cultural objects. We furthermore explore how the State-centric discourse that surrounds Indonesia’s cultural heritage protection and repatriation policies impede locally-led activism related to cultural heritage, particularly in relation to value production and sense of ownership. Overall, we highlight the importance of co-creation in knowledge production processes and crime-prevention methods concerning cultural heritage to maximize effectiveness. Agency, access, and ownership were violently removed through the colonial looting of Indonesian cultural heritage, so the first step towards restorative justice should be reinstating this to the communities of origin, or to the Indonesian government when the rightful origin community cannot be identified. This concerns not only the cultural objects themselves, but also their digital and physical lives, i.e. the knowledge and expertise created based on these objects.
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This article explores the ownership of cultural objects within national and traditional customary law in Suriname, with the aim to provide a legal context to the issue of claims for the return of some of these cultural objects from the Netherlands. The discussion of the legal regime for exporting cultural objects examines the National Ordinance of 1952 on Provisions for the Preservation of Objects with Historical, Cultural, and Scientific Value; the Movement of Goods Act of 2003; and the Monuments Act of 2002, which protects immovable objects, objects of archaeological excavations, and discoveries. This is followed by a short overview of the legal regime relating to the ownership of cultural property under the Surinamese Civil Code. Next this article outlines the property law of cultural objects under customary laws of Indigenous and Tribal communities in Suriname and how these may be included in the Draft Civil Code and the Draft Legislation on Rules Concerning the Collective Land Rights of Indigenous and Tribal Peoples. The article concludes that neither the existing legal framework nor the draft legislation provide answers on dealing with cultural objects acquired in a colonial context and the possible repatriation of such objects.
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The present article aims to outline the life and work of a great Romanian saint, little known, lover of silence and wilderness, and also a monk formed in the Athonite spirit of long night vigils, fasting and asceticism, becoming honored in Romanian, Greek and Russian Orthodoxy – Saint Antipas of Calapodesti.The beginning of the presentation will include a brief introduction in which I will recall the biographical sources of the saint, the publication of the biography and the canonization of Father Antipas. The following chapters will deal with the wonderful life of Saint Antipas of Calapodesti: His wonderful childhood, full of hardships, but also of searching for God's comforting grace, the sight of the uncreated light and the decision to follow the monastic life, the temptations overcome with the help of the Most Loving God and His Blessed Mother, his departure and his stay in the Holy Mountain, his complete obedience and humility, which led him to leave his beloved wilderness in the Holy Mountain and return to the city of Iasi to collect alms, his departure to Russia, also out of complete obedience, and his stay with blessing at the Valaam monastery in northern Russia.For the final part of the presentation, I have selected from the archive of the Prodromu Monastery in the Holy Mountain, a fragment from a personal letter of Father Antipas, which highlights the spiritual gifts that adorned this Romanian Saint.
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The subject of this paper is the analysis of the importance of digital libraries for pupils, students, professors, librarians and researchers in Bosnia and Herzegovina, but also around the world during the COVID-19 pandemic and frequent closures of cultural, information and heritage institutions. In 2017, the Gazi Husrev-bey Library established digital library, and its importance and importance of other digital libraries and repositories from around the world was best seen in the extraordinary conditions in which libraries were forced to continue their operations. In all of this, it is extremely important to mention the role of librarians and information experts, thanks to whom the educational processes and access to the necessary literature could be successfully continued. The importance of digitization is even greater if you take into account its role for international cooperation and the development of good relations between related institutions, especially in the Balkans. The aim of the paper is to present the importance of digital libraries, so that more users would learn about their existence, and at the same time encourage other institutions to start this type of activity. The analytical method will lead to basic conclusions related to the use and expediency of digital libraries, taking into account the forced closure of library buildings and the transition to digital or digitized content in all information and heritage institutions around the world through the example of Gazi Husrev-bey's library in Sarajevo.
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Art has always been a subject of controversy, inspiration, monetary interest and, eventually, legacy. As part of the mobile national cultural heritage, the artwork left by the great sculptor Constantin Brâncuși has not been evaded by legal battles across time and national borders.As such, the current paper aims in being more atypically compared to the standard legal research articles, but not less interesting, by trying to bring to light the economical and artistic interest artwork can bring not only to individuals, but also to states, by combining cultural and legal information nonetheless, and underlining the transborder interest such legal battles can attract.
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Review of: Prof. dr. Lejla Kodrić Zaimović, Baštinske studije: Od moderne do postdigitalne kulture Nacionalna i univerzitetska biblioteka Bosne i Hercegovine, Sarajevo, 2021.
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