Tag Archives: international law

2022: Year in Review

Posted on: December 19, 2022 by Alexander Herman

2022 was a year of great change, both in the world at large and for art law in particular. We saw the end of most of the worst effects of the covid pandemic, accompanied by what appears to be a final farewell to the era of lockdowns. We saw war in Europe for the first […]

Fabergé in London – Russia sanctions and immunity from seizure

Posted on: May 25, 2022 by Alexander Herman

On 8 May, the exhibition Fabergé in London: Romance to Revolution concluded at London’s Victoria & Albert Museum. Several of the pieces on display had been lent by collections in Russia, namely those of the Kremlin in Moscow and the Hermitage in St Petersburg. The exhibition, which opened on 20 November 2021, began in a […]

Russian invasion of Ukraine and the international legal protection of cultural property

Posted on: March 3, 2022 by Alexander Herman

It has been alarming to witness the invasion by Russian troops of Ukrainian territory over the last seven days. Distressing images of the bombardment of cities, communities under siege and refugees pouring into neighbouring countries have proliferated online. The primary focus of the international community has understandably been on the protection of human life and […]

A new take on cultural heritage at the ICJ – Armenia v. Azerbaijan

Posted on: February 17, 2022 by Alexander Herman

It’s rare that an international court confronts cultural heritage issues. But that’s just what happened two months ago. On 7 December, an important Order came down from the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague that included consideration of, amongst other matters, the importance of tangible cultural heritage to minority populations in times of […]

Latest issue of Art Antiquity & Law available now

Posted on: September 8, 2020 by Julia Rodrigues Casella Hommes

We are pleased to announce that the latest issue (Vol XXV, 2) of our journal Art Antiquity & Law is available now, please see below for details on subscriptions and access.  Paul Kearns provides the readers with a comprehensive panorama of the international legal regulations on freedom of artistic expression, a fundamental but much overlooked and […]

Iconic Titanic Marconi telegraph subject of key judgment

Posted on: May 28, 2020 by Paul Stevenson

Readers will recall the lore surrounding Titanic’s Marconi wireless operators, Jack Phillips and Harold Bride, who, it is said, famously stayed at their post sending distress messages whilst the Atlantic Ocean lapped at their feet. There has been conflicting and contradictory information about the demise of Phillips and Bride. Bride survived but it is almost […]

Renewed search for one of Spain’s “greatest treasure galleons”

Posted on: February 25, 2020 by Paul Stevenson

Media reports this month claim that almost four centuries after the ill-fated galleon Nuestra Señora del Juncal (“the Juncal”), a Spanish naval vessel, sank off the Mexican coast in a storm in October 1631, researchers from Mexico’s National Institute of Anthropology and History and Spain’s National Museum of Underwater Archaeology are to undertake a 10-day […]

Is the Titanic struggle over?

Posted on: January 28, 2020 by Paul Stevenson

Everyone knows that the wreck of RMS Titanic is special. Media reports have confirmed as much over the past week, which has seen reports about the wreck site and a bespoke international compact relating to the ill-fated vessel make headlines. As media reports have confirmed, a treaty negotiated in 2003 (Agreement Concerning the Shipwrecked Vessel […]

Finder of RMS Titanic in bid to solve Earhart mystery

Posted on: August 20, 2019 by Paul Stevenson

In something a bit different for followers of underwater cultural heritage, and a reminder that underwater heritage is not only about shipwrecks, news this week from the New York Times amongst others that veteran underwater sleuth Dr Robert Ballard, finder of RMS Titanic, has charted a course for a remote atoll in the Pacific island […]

Law, Restitution and the Benin Bronzes

Posted on: December 23, 2018 by Alexander Herman

In 1897, British troops marched on Benin City, capital of the fabled West African kingdom of Benin, ruled over by a powerful Oba. The attack was called a ‘punitive expedition’ because it was a retaliatory response to the Oba having massacred a British delegation of eight officials, two traders and local escorts the previous month. […]