An interesting look at 10 different cases (some well known, some more obscure) where countries are involved in disputes over the ownership of looted cultural property. Some of the cases have been resolved, but many are still no closer to reaching a conclusion than the day after the artefacts were originally taken.

From:
Business Insider

10 Ancient Artifacts That Countries Are Still Fighting Over
Vivian Giang | Jul. 14, 2011, 7:51 PM

Legendary historical artifacts have traded hands from conquerors to thieves and ended up thousands of miles from their origin.

The question of ownership is extremely murky.

With a black market in looted art worth as much as $6.3 billion a year, the mantra of “finder’s keepers” can be tempting. Past and present owners, however, may claim an object, sometimes leading to disputes and wars between nations.
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More coverage of the US Appeal Court verdict on the seizure of Iranian Artefacts from two Chicago Museums.

From:
Tehran Times

Wednesday, April 6, 2011
U.S. court rejects seizure of Iranian antiquities
Tehran Times Culture Desk

TEHRAN — The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit has rejected confiscation of Iran’s 300 Achaemenid clay tablets loaned to the University of Chicago’s Oriental Institute in a session on March 29.

In the ruling, the Court of Appeals reversed a lower court’s order that might have handed the artifacts over to several victims of a 1997 terrorist bombing in Israel, the Circle of Ancient Iranian Studies (CAIS) reported last week.
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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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