The Convention has been open for signature since 2017 and has so far been signed and ratified by only five members of the Council of Europe and one non-member state. Perhaps unsurprisingly, most of the countries that have adopted the Convention are source countries, i.e., countries from which antiquities originate, including Cyprus, Greece, Italy and Mexico, which have an inherent interest in protecting their cultural heritage. 

The Lawyers Monthly

The Council of Europe’s Nicosia Convention puts cultural heritage at the heart of its mission and provides for a criminal justice response to the criminal offences relating to cultural property. It is the only international legal instrument aiming at preventing and combating the destruction, damage and trafficking of cultural property by providing for the criminalisation of certain acts.

Source & link: CoE

A U.S. judge ruled on Tuesday that Turkey cannot recover a 6,000-year-old marble idol known as the "Guennol Stargazer" from Christie's and the hedge fund billionaire Michael Steinhardt.

Article in Swissinfo

On Wednesday, the US announced it was returning 17,000 archaeological artifacts to Iraq. The objects, which are around 4,000 years old and from the Sumerian period, were returned on Thursday onboard the flight of Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi, who was in Washington DC for a meeting with US President Joe Biden.

Full article in DW

Police have been barred from searching the Queen’s private estates for stolen or looted artefacts after ministers granted her a personal exemption from a law that protects the world’s cultural property, the Guardian can reveal. Buckingham Palace and the government are refusing to say why it was deemed necessary in 2017 to give the Queen an exemption that prevents police from searching Balmoral and Sandringham.

The Guardian

The Greek Committee of the Blue Shield, the University of Nicosia and the University of Athens organize a seminar on the protection of Cultural Heritage.

Language: English

Click here for more information

The University of Geneva organizes with the support of UNESCO, UNIDROIT and the Foundation Gandur pour L’Art, a two day conference titled: What prospects for “orphan works"? Reflections on cultural goods without provenance”. The conference will take place on the 4th and 5th February 2021 and will be held in French and English with simultaneous translation.

 _{More details as well as the Program here}

A Chinese court judged that lex rei sitae should be interpreted to facilitate the return of stolen cultural property, so that the lex furti, i.e., Chinese law, shall govern the ownership of stolen cultural property overseas.

Read the Article here

A new independent conservation organisation is calling on members of the public and culture professionals to monitor and report on the status of Unesco’s World Heritage sites because safeguarding these cultural hot spots has become a “secondary concern” for the United Nations cultural agency.   The Art Newspaper

 Our World Heritage Website

Ahead of a major anniversary this weekend, the international organisation is under fire for apparently exaggerating the scale of the illicit trade in cultural goods.

Article by The Art Newspaper

The U.S. government is demanding a San Francisco museum give up claims to two religious relics allegedly stolen from Thailand, the U.S. attorney’s office announced Tuesday. A civil complaint filed Monday in federal court seeks the forfeiture of two 1,500-pound hand-carved sandstone lintels the government contends were looted from ancient temples in Thailand.

 The Washington Post

It’s been two months since the blast, and Maria Hibri has glued together the splintered filigree from her triple-arched windows....  Article: BNN Bloomberg

[....] The first and most significant federal law governing archaeology is the Antiquities Act of 1906. This act was the first to establish penalties for illegal excavations, damage, or appropriation of American antiquities. These penalties, however, only apply when the illegal action takes place on land “owned or controlled” by the federal government. The act also authorizes the President to declare historic landmarks as national monuments. [...]

The Regulatory Review

A German court has ruled that the current possessor of a work of art cannot stop a claimant from registering it on a government database of Nazi-looted art in the latest in a series of legal challenges to listings on lostart.de 

The Art Newspaper

A sculpture that was stolen from the National Museum of Afghanistan in Kabul almost 30 years ago is to be returned to its country of origin after being seen on a British auctioneer’s website and investigated by the Metropolitan police.

The Guardian

Germany has launched a specialized office to help people reclaim art and other cultural assets seized by the Nazis during WWII. The official “help desk” has been established in Berlin by the German Lost Art Foundation, the state-funded organization that oversees all matters pertaining to the illegal seizure of cultural assets during the Nazi regime.

Article in ArtNetNews

An international police operation carried out ον 18.11.2019, supported by Eurojust and Europol, dismantled an international organised crime group involved in large-scale trafficking of Greek archaeological items looted from Calabria, Italy, resulting in 23 arrests and 103 searches and seizures, yielding approximately 10 000 archaeological goods.

More under ΕUROJUST

A year ago this month, authors Felwine Sarr and Bénédicte Savoy submitted their controversial report to French President Emanuel Macron. The report recommended the return of a vast number of Sub-Saharan African artefacts currently in French public museums, while suggesting a procedure for securing that return. Here we are in late 2019 and not a single item has been returned to Africa.

A comment by Alexander Herman in The Art Newspaper

The culture ministers of Germany’s 16 states and the federal government have agreed to set up a help desk to inform and advise individuals and institutions from former colonies seeking to repatriate objects looted from their territory during the colonial era.The new help desk will start work in the first quarter of next year and will be half financed by the states, half by the federal government.

The Art Newspaper

Pressure on the UK’s art trade is increasing as it faces a wave of legislative changes and increased attention from enforcement agencies. As UK courts introduced new sentencing guidelines for criminal damage to heritage assets on 1 October, the trade was counting down to the anti-money-laundering regulations that are coming into force in January and pushing for a judicial review of the contentious Ivory Act 2018.

The Art Newspaper

[...] Unlike banks, life insurance companies, casinos, currency exchangers, and even precious-metals dealers, auction houses and art sellers have no obligation to report large cash transactions to a governing authority. In fact, dealers can keep the names of buyers and sellers anonymous.

Read full article here

A controversial sale of pre-Columbian art went ahead in Paris on Wednesday despite calls from Mexico and UNESCO for it to be halted. The Mexican government filed a formal complaint against the auction of 120 religious and cultural artefacts from several private collections, including sacred jewellery worn by a shaman and the figurine of a fertility goddess.

France24 - Full article

{...} The EU’s latest amended money laundering law takes effect in 2020. It will impose new rules of transparency on galleries and auction houses regarding their transactions, and it will impose sanctions if the operators do not comply. The EU is also urging all its member states to further populate Interpol’s databases on stolen goods and illegal antiquities to boost cross-border prosecutions.{..}

Atlantic Council

In a recent decision, the Swiss Supreme Court clarified the requirements to be met by countries of origin when requesting the return of artworks allegedly illicitly exported by their legitimate owners, thus absent any issues of ownership.

An Article published by Lexology

This agreement places U.S. import restrictions on categories of Algerian archaeological material dating from 2.4 million years ago to approximately 1750 A.D..

Article by Stl.News

Bonhams has withdrawn an ancient Greek drinking vessel from sale amid accusations that it was excavated illegally and that major auction-houses are failing to make adequate checks into whether antiquities were looted from their country of origin.

The Telegraph

An article by Elene Goukassian  in Artsynet.

Full Article here

A legal battle that began in 2008 regarding the provenance of Germany’s famed Guelph Treasure may soon wind up in the United States Supreme Court after the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit rejected an appeal last week.

Article in Artsynet

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit today dismissed the petition to rehear en banc last year’s landmark ruling that the heirs of the art dealers who sold the Guelph Treasure (or Welfenschatz) may pursue their claims in U.S. federal court.

Guelph Treasure Claims to Go Forward

At least 100 artifacts from Yemen have been successfully sold at auction for an estimated $1 million in the U.S., Europe and the United Arab Emirates since 2011, according to a Live Science investigation into the country's so-called "blood antiquities."

Full article here

The Washington Times published an opinion by L. Todd on how tax-exempt warehouses contribute to some $899 billion laundered each year globally.

Article

More than 30 000 illegally exported ancient artefacts seized in a bust of an organised crime group in Spain and Bulgaria are to be returned to Bulgaria, the Prosecutor’s Office said on April 18. At a co-ordination meeting of investigators held on April 11 2019 at Eurojust headquarters in The Hague, it was agreed that the trial would be in Spain, where most of the suspects were held.

The Sofia Globe

The US Supreme Court declined to hear a case that worked its way up through the US justice system concerning the legal ownership of a painting by Henri Matisse. Portrait of Greta Moll, made in 1908, resides in the stores at London’s National Gallery.

Article: www.art-critique.com

Italy and China have agreed to join forces and fight the illegal trafficking of antiquities as part of an agreement signed between the two countries. The Italian government also announced it will return 796 objects that had been illegally exported to Italy from China after a court in Milan ruled last November that the items should be repatriated. The Art Newspaper

China's Ministry of Justice began Tuesday consulting public opinions on a draft revision to the regulation on the protection of underwater cultural heritage.

Xinhuanet

London’s National Army Museum is to restitute locks of hair of emperor Tewodros, which will now be buried in Ethiopia. Hair is not regarded as “human remains” under UK government guidance for museums (which allows for restitution), but the museum’s council regarded the return as “an opportunity to do something positive diplomatically with Ethiopia”.

Article: The Art Newspaper

China is willing to cooperate further with the United States in relics repatriation and protection, so as to promote a win-win and fair model for the international community at large, a senior Chinese official in charge of relic preservation said recently.

Article: www.xinhuanet.com

A rush to judgement has resulted in notable errors, with some "Nazi-looted" art having been purchased legally. An article by Jane Kallir.

Article: The Art Newspaper

Gordon Rintoul, director of the Museum of Scotland, insisted it had all the correct paperwork to show that a casing stone from the Great Pyramid of Giza was lawfully taken out of Egypt on behalf of Charles Piazzi Smyth nearly 140 years ago.

Source: The Guardian

The UK government has announced plans to widen the definition of treasure. At present, only items that are at least 300 years old and made substantially of gold or silver, or which are found with artefacts of precious metals, can be declared treasure, so long as an owner cannot be found.

                            Article: The Guardian

 This years course in International Cultural Heritage Law by the Geneva Summer School will take place on 17 -28 July 2019. It is organized by the Art-Law Centre and the UNESCO Chair in the International Law of the Protection of Cultural Heritage of the University of Geneva, in collaboration with the University of Miami School of Law. We strongly recommend!

More: The Geneva Summer School

A museum's lending process has sparked outrage and raised questions. The question of how to protect national treasures on loan to overseas exhibitions is gaining traction on both sides of the Taiwan Strait.

Article: CGTN.com

Heirs of a renowned Jewish art collector won’t be able use U.S courts to sue Hungary’s government for the return of paintings seized during World War II that are worth millions, as the Supreme Court said it wouldn’t take the case. So it seems Hungary is immune from being sued in U.S. courts over the paintings stands.

Article and source: Daily Journal

Dealers’ association seeks meeting with culture minister over fears report will open the door to numerous restitution claims for a range of artefacts.

Article: The Art Newspaper

We wish all our friends a Happy New Year!

Thank you for your support and interest in our work. We will keep on!

The team of HSLA

According to The Art Newspaper the so-called Savoy-Sarr report commissioned by President Emmanuel considers the “main obstacle” to restitution  “the inalienability of public collections”.  In other words, works in French national collections cannot be sold or transferred.

Full Article: www.theartnewspaper.com

France plans to return colonial-era objects to Africa. Other former colonial nations also pondering how to deal with colonial collections. Restitution should not be the focus, a German museum director warns.

Full Article: Deutsche Welle

The US museum will appeal an Italian court's ruling that the Greek bronze belongs in Italy.

The full article by Artnet News

Germany's new 130-page code of conduct should help museums determine whether colonial-era artifacts were taken unlawfully. But then what?

Article by the "Handelsblatt"

An Italian judge ruled on June 1st  that a fourth-century BC Greek statue known as Lysippus after its creator or the Victorious Athlete must be seized wherever in the world it is, rejecting a Malibu Getty Museum appeal. The statue, fished out of the sea off Pesaro in 1964, was bought by the Californian museum for around four million dollars in 1977 from German art dealer Herman Heinz Herzer. Friday's was the third verdict of the same kind by the Pesaro judiciary.
 
Source

An Athens appeals court has upheld an 11-year sentence against a Sicilian art and antiquities dealer convicted over the theft four decades ago of four rare murals from an Early Christian rural church in Steni on Evia.

Source: Article by Kathimerini

According to the CDR a new arbitration court, to be seated in The Hague, will focus on art-related disputes which have traditionally been at odds with the court litigation process. https://www.cdr-news.com/categories/quinn-emanuel/8176-exclusive-new-arbitration-court-will-tackle-art-disputes

Angelos Delivorias, a very special person. We will miss him.

http://www.ekathimerini.com/227998/article/ekathimerini/news/former-head-of-benaki-museum-angelos-delivorias-dies-aged-81

The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) and the International Centre for the Study of the Preservation and Restoration of Cultural Property (ICCROM) signed a landmark agreement on Friday 13 October in a new effort to address mounting threats to cultural properties worldwide.

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Τhe Minister of Justice of Italy, Andrea Orlando, signed the new Council of Europe Convention on Offences relating to Cultural Property, unofficially also referred to as the “Blood Antiquities” Convention. The Convention on Offences relating to Cultural Property aims to prevent and combat the illicit trafficking and destruction of cultural property, in the framework of the organization’s action to fight terrorism and organized crime. Since Mai 2017 nine countries have signed the Convention: Armenia, Cyprus, Greece, Italy, Portugal, San Marino, Slovenia, Ukraine and Mexico.  

Christos Tsirogiannis, a prominent Cambridge-based forensic archaeologist, identified the marble vases – known as lekythoi and dating from the 4th century BC – as related to the convicted dealer Becchina’s.

In April, Iraqi forces recaptured an empty Mosul Museum from IS fighters. It had been looted and vandalised, although much of its collection was moved to Baghdad in 2014 AHMAD GHARABLI/AFP/Getty Images

Confronted with military defeats and loss of revenues, Islamic State (IS) is taking over the sale and smuggling of looted artefacts, according to testimonies collected by the Wall Street Journal (WSJ). “Their accounts describe a pattern of trafficking in which ancient objects make their way from archaeological sites to warehouses in Europe and Asia to await sale to dealers in the West… Western security officials say they expect revenue from looted antiquities to become an increasingly important source of money for IS if its other revenue streams, such as oil, continue to dwindle,” the newspaper predicted in an article from 6 August.

The museum consortium, known as the Benin Dialogue Group, is seeking a way to end decades of wrangling over the estimated 4,000 bronze and ivory artefacts looted by the British army from what is now southern Nigeria as part of a punitive expedition in 1897. Since the 1960s, Nigeria has repeatedly called for their repatriation. The group, formed in 2007, has begun to formulate an action plan “towards the establishment of a permanent display in Benin City”, a university spokesman said. Its members discussed fundraising to support appropriate conservation and security conditions for the objects in Benin City as well as a legal framework that will ensure their immunity from seizure in Nigeria.

According to the Lebanese “The 961” news, the Lebanese Ministry of Culture declared on 13.10.2017 that the new law on Protection of Historic Sites and Buildings got approved by the Council of Ministers. It still needs to make it to the parliament before it is enacted and considered an enforceable law.

Abera Anjulo, a senior expert of the Cultural Heritage Inspection and Standardization Authority for Research and Conservation of Cultural Heritages (ARCCH) speaks on the situation of the illegal trafficking in cultural goods in Ethiopia.

A Colorado couple has dropped a federal lawsuit that sought to stop the Manhattan district attorney’s office from returning to the Republic of Lebanon an ancient marble bull’s head that prosecutors said had been looted during that country’s civil war. The collectors, Lynda and William Beierwaltes, had argued that they bought the artifact in good faith for more than $1 million in 1996.

According to TASS Russia’s State Hermitage Museum and UNESCO have inked a memorandum on cooperating to protect items of cultural value in armed conflict zones, in particular, in the Middle East. It was signed by Hermitage Museum Director General, Mikhail Piotrovsky, and UNESCO Head Irina Bokova.