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State Immunity, Anti-Seizure and Customary International Law
Transparency, Integrity, Mobility and Security
under
Cross-Border Loans and other Sharing Transactions
affecting
Cultural Objects
A two-day conference in London in association with the Foundation for International Cultural Diplomacy
with the generous support of Blackwall Green and Withers LLP
London 17th-18th July 2008
Reserve a place or request further particulars
Great pressure exists on museums to maximise public access to their collections, rationalise collecting policies, craft new ways of sharing their resources and explore international commercial opportunities. Art collections have become diplomatic and economic assets as well as scholarly resources, and are expected to fulfil an ambassadorial role in international conditions where competition is mounting and “loan fees” offer seductive inducements. These developments are reflected in the rise of anti-seizure or immunity statutes that seek to protect cultural objects from entanglement in legal proceedings while on loan to foreign states. The United Kingdom statute, Part 6 of the Tribunals Courts and Enforcement Act 2007, is an inventive but controversial contribution to this trend.
But concurrently with its response to an increased demand for circulation, the museum world is developing a heightened appreciation of the perils of illicit material and of the need to refrain from all taint of profiting from prior dubious transactions. Museums that value their reputation need to devise ways of isolating such material from the ethical sphere of art lending and exchange and of securing the return of unlawfully removed objects to their dispossessed owners. Does legal immunity support or subvert that need?
Regrettably not every object in a museum collection, or accepted on loan by a museum from a private collector, will have an impeccable lineage. Some museums are for historical reasons reluctant even to exhibit material on their own premises, let alone to expose it to international scrutiny. Sometimes it may be obvious that an object has been illegally removed from a country of origin but impossible to determine that country.
The main object of the conference is to explore the balance between two paramount modern imperatives in the field of art and antiquities:
the unhindered cross-border movement of cultural material by way of loan, exchange, joint ownership schemes and other means, and
the vindication of legal and other interests in cultural objects so that legitimate principles supporting legal title and national heritage are honoured.
In pursuit of this objective, the conference will look in detail at the policies demanding cross-border mobility, the legal vehicles for achieving such mobility, the risks that threaten the itinerant work of art and the devices that exist to afford legal immunity or other protection. On the latter point particular focus will be placed on the practical application and value of modern anti-seizure statutes, looking critically at their pragmatic workability and functional differences, as well as the searching questions of principle that they provoke.
A complete list of speakers will be available shortly. Subjects on which speakers have been invited to speak include:
Drafting an International Anti-Seizure Convention: is Cross-Border Agreement Attainable?
State Immunity for Cultural Objects under the Draft UN Convention
Commercial Transactions and State Immunity under Private International Law
State Immunity: a Diplomat’s View
Museums and Human Rights: the Natural History Museum episode and its Lessons for International Museums
Legal Archaeology and the Mobility of Title: Title Vindication within Cross-Border Cultural Property Claims
The Role of Public International Law in Private Law Claims
War Reparations, Restitution in Kind and Customary International Law
Sharing Art to and from Russia: Trust, Security, Diplomacy - Status Quo or Quid pro Quo?
The Legal Implications of Iraq for the Mobility of Archaeological Objects
The Principle of Immunity: Promoting Public Access, Honouring Private Rights
The Nuts and Bolts of Museum Immunity: Devising a Balanced Regime of Safe Conduct for Itinerant Art
Finally from Russia: The Royal Academy Bailments
Regulating the Export of Cultural Goods: the Justiciability of National Export Laws
National Systems of Immunity from Suit and their Comparative Interrelation: a panel question and answer session involving participants from about a dozen national jurisdictions.
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