The 5th annual conference of the Association for research into crimes against art takes place on 22-23 June 2013, in Amelia, Italy.

From:
ARCA

ARCA’s 5th Annual Art Crime Conference will be held June 21-23, 2013

Amelia Italy

The Association for Research into Crimes against Art (ARCA) is pleased to announce it 5th annual interdisciplinary conference on Art Crime to be held June 21-23, 2013

Providing an arena for intellectual and professional exchange, the annual Art Crime conference is integral to the nonprofit’s mission and serves as a forum which aims to facilitate a critical appraisal of the protection of art and heritage worldwide.
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Derek Fincham of the South Texas College of Law may be better known to some readers of this website as the author of the Illicit Cultural Property blog.

In a recently published paper, he looks at a series of principles that the British Museum & Greece could use together to secure a just return of the sculptures.

You can download the full paper at the page below, or with this link.

From:
Social Science Research Network

The Parthenon Sculptures and Cultural Justice
Derek Fincham
South Texas College of Law
August 18, 2012

Abstract:
From government and philosophy to art drama and culture, the ancient Athenians, as most everyone knows, gave future generations so much. Yet the pinnacle of their artistic achievement, the Parthenon, remains a damaged and incomplete work of art. 2012 marks the two-hundredth anniversary of the last removal of works of art from the Parthenon. That taking was ordered by an English diplomat known to history as Lord Elgin, and it reminds us that cultures create lasting monuments. But not equally. Cultures which remove the artistic achievements of other nations have increasingly been confronted with uncomfortable questions about how these objects were acquired. Nations of origin are increasingly deciding to press claims for repatriation of works taken long ago. They proceed through history mindful of the irresistible genius of their forebears have created and are unwilling to cease their calls for return.
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The Foreign Cultural Exchange Jurisdictional Immunity Clarification Act has stirred up quite a bit of controversy in the USA.

Many who have examined the bill (S. 2212) say that despite exemptions in the planned law, it is only really there to protect the interests of the big museums – while reducing the chances of recovering looted artefacts by the original owners (or their descendants).

From:
New York Times

Dispute Over Bill on Borrowed Art
The heirs of Malevich sought to recover paintings, including the ones displayed above center and right.
By DOREEN CARVAJAL
Published: May 21, 2012

The lending and borrowing of famous artworks is the essence of cultural exchange between museums in the United States and abroad. So routine is the practice, and so universally valued, that the American government has traditionally protected it with a law that shields a lent work from being seized by anyone with a claim to legal ownership while the art is on display here.

In recent years, though, American museum directors have come to fear that this safeguard has eroded, and that foreign museums, dreading entanglement in costly ownership battles, are more hesitant to make loans. So they have asked Congress to increase the security for global art swaps.
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The US Court of Appeals has overturned the verdict by lower courts in a long running case, that ordered two Chicago museums to hand over Iranian artefacts as compensation for American victims of a 1997 Hamas bombing. I still struggle to understand the logic that this entire case is based on – as the compensation seems entirely disconnected from the actual events – and if such a case is successful might lead the way for ever more spurious artefact seizures, making museums more reluctant to lend to US museums.

From:
CAIS

University of Chicago and Museums Win Key Ruling in Legal Battle Over Iranian Antiquities
Wednesday, 30 March 2011 00:30
By David Glenn

LONDON, (CAIS) — Chicago’s Field Museum of Natural History and the University of Chicago’s Oriental Institute won a victory on Tuesday in their efforts to maintain possession of thousands of ancient Iranian artifacts. In a ruling, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit reversed a lower court’s order that might have handed the artifacts over to several American victims of a 1997 terrorist bombing in Jerusalem.

Those victims won a $90-million judgment in 2003 against the government of Iran, which is claimed to have allegedly financed and trained the Arab terrorists who carried out the Jerusalem bombing. But the victims and their families have struggled to collect any of that judgment from Iran, and their lawyers have sought instead to seize purported Iranian assets in the United States, including antiquities held in American museums. Those legal efforts have been condemned by some scholars as a dangerous politicization of the world’s archaeological heritage.
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