This paper investigates the relationship between international investment law and the protection of cultural heritage. Two questions arise in this connection. First, are investment agreements compatible with states' obligations to protect cultural heritage? Second, if internal measures aimed at protecting cultural heritage can be challenged by foreign investors, is mixed arbitration a suitable forum to protect public interests Indeed, it seems that the regime established according to investment treaties does not strike an appropriate balance between the different interests concerned. After giving a brief look at the legal framework protecting foreign investments, the conflict areas between investment treaty provisions and national cultural policies are explored through an empirical analysis of the recent arbitral jurisprudence concerning cultural heritage. This paper holds that jurisprudential balancing may not provide an adequate protection to cultural heritage; thus, cultural exceptions should be included in investment agreements.

The understanding of the relationship between culture and nature as manifested in the UNESCO declarations and practices has changed over the last few years. The World Heritage Convention is continuing to evolve its definitions to reflect the increasing complexities of world cultures as they grapple with the heritage conservation policies that reflect their multiple stakeholders. They are also integrating a greater cultural perspective in their recent resolutions to the convention. Although the links between nature and culture have been clarified through this new attention to cultural landscapes, many countries and their bureaucracies have not yet adopted these new perspectives. The article suggests that to achieve an integrated approach to conservation, national, regional, and international bodies and their professionals must be involved. Two examples are discussed to address the shortcomings of the application of the convention and to illustrate the complexities of defining and conserving cultural landscapes.

Last year, in volume 13 of this journal, Lyndel Prott published a Case Note entitled, “The Dja Dja Warrung Bark Etchings Case.”Prott, “The Dja Dja Warrung Bark Etchings Case.” In it she set out the background to a court case in Melbourne in 2004 to 2005 under the federal Administrative Decisions (Judicial Review) Act 1977. The case related to three nineteenth-century bark items made by Aboriginal people in northern Victoria, items now held in the collections of two London museums. The items had been borrowed by Museum Victoria and brought to Australia for an exhibition in the Melbourne Museum. During the exhibition, an inspector under the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Heritage Protection Act 1984 had imposed a series of successive emergency declarations. The effect of these declarations had been to prevent Museum Victoria from fulfilling its contracts to return the three items to the overseas museums who had lent them for exhibition. The case went to court after several months of unsuccessful negotiations when Museum Victoria successfully challenged the legality of continuous emergency declarations. The inspector then failed in a request to the Victorian Minister for Aboriginal Affairs to make a permanent declaration to keep the objects in Australia, or to acquire the items compulsorily under the Heritage Protection Act. The objects were then returned to Britain.

I was the curator of the exhibition, Etched on Bark 1854: Kulin barks from Northern Victoria, which was held within the Aboriginal Gallery of Melbourne Museum between March and June 2004. This paper is a discussion of some of the issues raised by the exhibition and its aftermath, and it is written from the perspective of a curator and a historian.

The first part of the paper sets out the historical provenance of the three items, and discusses how the items came to be collected and sent overseas in the 1850s. I then describe how the debates at the time of the emergency declarations largely ignored this historical background, suggest some reasons why this occurred, and draw out some implications for the future. Last, I consider issues arising from the claims of ‘ownership’ that were made before and during the court case.This paper builds on two conference papers, one presented to the Museums Australia Conference in Brisbane in May 2006 and the second given to the Conference of the Australian Registrar's Committee in Hobart in November 2006. An expanded version of the first paper, “History, Strong Stories and New Traditions” appears in History Australia, June 2007.

In a recent article published by the International Journal of Cultural Property, “What Does Not Move Any Hearts—Why Should It Be Saved? The Denkmalpflegediskussion in Germany,” Dr. Cornelius Holtorf reviewed an expert report by Dieter Hoffmann-Axthelm, an architectural critic and author of several books on the history of architecture and urban planning, to the German Parliament on the principles and practices of state heritage management in that country. Of Hoffmann-Axthelm's criticisms, the most resonating was the view that heritage management processes in Germany were often patronizing, centralized, and undemocratic. Although his proposed remedies are abundant, some might be interpreted as being divisive, if not contentious. Hoffmann-Axthelm's central argument is that heritage management processes should be driven by the public and, thus, further decentralized.

This paper is a response to an invitation by Holtorf for international comparisons and discussion. It aims to present an overview of Australia's approach to heritage management and discuss a number of issues, raised by Hoffmann-Axthelm, and questions, particularly the merits associated with the concept of “democratising heritage,” posed by Holtorf.ACKNOWLEDGMENTS: I wish to thank Dr. Patrick J. O'Keefe for being an inspirational mentor, and am grateful for the thoughtful comments and suggestions provided by Dr. Greg Terrill and Dr. Kirsty Douglas, and the unwavering support and patience of love ones. Opinions in this piece and any errors of fact or interpretation are my own and in no way represent the views of the Department of the Environment, Water, Heritage and the Arts.

On September 25, 2007, the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art (MASS MoCA) won its declaratory judgment case against Swiss artist Christoph Büchel and potentially set additional Visual Artist Rights Act (VARA) precedent. Judge Ponsor agreed that Büchel's unfinished work Training Ground for Democracy was not protected by VARA. Artists cried foul. Journalists excoriated the museum with incendiary comments in the New York Times art section such as “the museum deserves to be scathed.”Smith, “Is it Art Yet? And Who Decides?” Why did an artistic disagreement end up ensnared in a relatively nasty legal “custody” battle?

John Carman, Against Cultural Property: Archaeology, Heritage and Ownership. London, Duckworth, 2005. Pp. 145. ISBN 071563402X. 11.99 pounds sterling.

Carman is a latecomer to archaeology. He worked in areas such as finance, law, and commercial administration and is thus well acquainted with legal and business issues otherwise outside the reach of ordinary archaeologists and even heritage scholars and managers. Thanks to his unique background, Carman acknowledges from the start that archaeology does not exist in a vacuum; and notions from law, finance, economics, environmental science, and management are deeply intertwined with archaeological heritage. Starting with illicit antiquities and Merryman's arguments for licit trade in antiquities, the American lawyer argues that this promotes the values of the objects itself and of its traffic across the globe over those of the individual nation state from which it derives. The whole book by Carman is to dispute this approach, challenging the notion of ownership itself, because it is considered to be the problem in our treatment of ancient remains.

Proceedings of the Doha Conference of ‘Ulama on Islam and Cultural Heritage. Doha, Qatar. December 30–31, 2001. Pp. 73 in English and Arabic each. New York: UNESCO, 2005.

On February 26, 2001, the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan ordered the destruction of “all statues and non-Islamic shrines” in the country. In March the ministers of culture and finance destroyed 2750 of the nation's art treasures; after a month of intensive shelling, the Taliban government obliterated the statues of the Buddha in Bamiyan. At the end of December 2001, a conference of Islamic legal scholars (‘ulama) was convened on the subject of cultural heritage at Doha, Qatar. In between, of course, came the September 11, 2001, attacks (9/11).