The publication of a book in 2020 that argues against repatriation, on the grounds that it is incompatible with the necessary objectivity required for the production of scientific knowledge, raises issues that most scholars consider long settled. Rather than engage in a detailed review, this commentary revisits the reasons why claims of contributing to universal knowledge are insufficient to justify exploitation of the physical remains, and cultural property, of people who object to specific lines of research and reminds readers that academic freedom is a mitigated freedom that is rooted in responsibilities and norms agreed on within disciplines, all of which today accept repatriation as part of the necessary redress of legacies of exploitation.

Organ craftsmanship and music are inextricably linked with each other. In Germany, a particularly rich symbiosis between craftspeople, composers, and performing artists has evolved over the centuries. In recognizing the transmission of this intangible cultural know-how from generation to generation, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) inscribed organ craftsmanship and music together in the Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity in 2017. This article elucidates how this inscription influences the perception and self-concept of organ craftsmanship and music, both in theoretic-intellectual and in virtual terms. Complementing the qualitative content analysis of literature and documents, narrative first-hand accounts/expert interviews with organ craftspeople/organ builders have been conducted and interpreted. Taking into account a dual nexus of cultural sustainability and intangible cultural heritage, sustainable value creation, substantial claims, multi-perspective visibility, and facilitative reassurance were analyzed and assessed vis-à-vis organ craftsmanship and music. Including organ craftsmanship and music in UNESCO’s Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity demonstrates an appreciation for sustainable value creation related to the quadruple bottom-line of sustainability – that is, addressing economic, environmental, and societal aspects, including culture as a fully integrated dimension; claims substantial rights for safeguarding and invoking/activating heritage; enhances visibility of performing organists, assigned organ builders, frequent practitioners, and nominated organ experts; and enables reassurance of passion and self-positioning with organ craftsmanship and music.

The Supreme Court issued its decision in Spring 1998 in California and State Lands Commission v Deep Sea Research, Inc. making the noteworthy holding that treasure salvors that have 'actual possession' of shipwrecks located on a state's submerged lands will not be ousted from federal court jurisdiction on Eleventh Amendment immunity grounds. Calling into question the Supreme Court's previous opinion involving shipwreck litigation in Florida Dept. of State v. Treasure Salvors, Inc., decided in 1982, the Court has made clear that claims for title to such submerged artifacts can now be fully adjudicated in federal court. In making this significant ruling, and in redefining what constitutes a 'colorable claim' to title in shipwrecks under the Abandoned Shipwreck Act, the Court resuscitated legal precedent that predates the 1865 sinking of shipwrecked Brother Jonathan.

Switzerland is undergoing a period of change from the perspective of fighting the illegal traffic of cultural goods. Effective January 3, 2004, Switzerland has ratified the 1970 UNESCO Convention on the means of prohibiting and preventing the illicit import, export, and transfer of ownership of cultural property. Furthermore the convention has been put into effect in Switzerland by the adoption of the Federal Act on the International Transfer of Cultural Property (CPTA) and its related ordinance, both of which took effect on June 1, 2005.ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS: I would like to express my thanks to my friend and colleague Professor Bénédict Foëx for his comments, his insight, and our lively discussions about this case. My thanks also go to the editors of the Uniform Law Review, which has published a French version of the present article.Unif. L. Rev./Rev. dr. Unif. (2006): 399.

South Carolina’s tidal rice fields are significant historic and cultural landscapes. A critical piece of the cultural significance is continuity in the process of using the land. This essay provides an overview of how collaboration among historic preservationists, archaeologists, biologists, federal and state agencies, consultants, and plantation managers resulted in new methods of permitting work in historic tidal rice fields and new understandings of rice fields as significant historic properties.

The country of Solomon Islands, like most Pacific island nations, has a legally pluralistic regime. That is, customary law operates in parallel with the common law, a legacy of Solomon Islands' colonial past. Legal pluralism raises significant difficulties, including in the way cultural heritage is protected and managed. To date, the courts have rarely been called on to deal with such issues, but in 2010 the High Court had to examine legislation designed to regulate the recovery and export of World War II relics. This seemingly innocuous case raised a number of issues concerning the rights of different stakeholders to this material. Moreover, it raised a foundational question as to whether these relics might be considered cultural heritage, and if so, just whose heritage it was. A consideration of this case and the legislation that applies to this heritage serves to illustrate some of the difficulties that arise in protecting cultural heritage within pluralistic legal systems.

The recent reform of the Unified National Civil and Commercial Code will bring about significant changes in the Argentine legal system. The aim of this article is to analyze their impact in relation to the area of cultural heritage, especially in regard to the public property status of archaeological and paleontological heritage. Changes adopted—in contrast to those proposed, which referred to the issues related to indigenous communities and the protection of collective rights—are also discussed. The latter is the most innovative aspect of the reform since it involves a change of approach regarding private property and strengthens the regulatory powers of the state over private property, which might be applied to the protection of cultural property.

In May 2007, I gave a talk at the Institute for Public Health Genetics (IPHG) at the University of Washington (UW), Seattle. My topic was the Genographic Project, specifically the colonial history and racial narratives that I see as shaping the work of the project. I left IPHG encouraged by my conversations with UW researchers, including native researchers and program administrators who organize collaborative and ethically rigorous research. The individuals I met work in multiple native communities, especially those in the Pacific Northwest.

This article examines the social and artistic antiquation of moral rights law. Moral rights law developed, and was implemented, under the heavy influence of the French preference to put the rights of the author at the center of intellectual property protection (with Victor Hugo leading this charge). However, as artistic practice evolves in a continually rapid fashion, it is becoming increasingly clear that moral rights are unable to properly accord with modern art forms. An examination of the social construction of authorship, the emergence of unique contemporary art forms, and the role of technology as a catalyst to intellectual property law, reveals that the Western world’s legal moral rights scheme cannot survive its current form. Moral rights’ endurance hinges on its ability to reconcile with a social and artistic climate alien to its origins. Artistic expression does not exist in a vacuum and is inextricably linked to, and reflective of, the social climate it is born out of. As society evolves and shifts, so too does its art and so must the law.

“Sleepers” are artworks or collectibles that are undervalued because one or more characteristics go unrecognized. This article discusses 12 sleepers that have been sold at auction on the antiquity market since 2007 whose attribution as antiquities were originally overlooked, either accidentally or deliberately. The objects are presented in the context of a theoretical framework describing both the legal and economic incentives to perform due diligence and to reveal, or “awaken,” a sleeper antiquity. The theory implies that sleepers may arise for several reasons, and the case studies are grouped accordingly. Most pressingly, the analysis identifies two ways in which sellers are disincentivized to be transparent about an object’s identity: when they can exploit legal loopholes to deliberately misattribute an antiquity and mediate export and when they can hide disagreement about an object’s authenticity to mediate its sale. Placing the case studies in the broader market context, we highlight particular areas that should be addressed by policy or regulatory reform. The analysis also has wider applications to other forms of art.

First, I would like to thank George Nicholas and Julie Hollowell for inviting me to comment on this important panel discussion. Second, I would like to thank all the panelists for their articulate and highly stimulating discussion, which deftly illustrates the range of cultural, historical, and political complexities that inform not only the Genographic Project but also research conducted with Indigenous peoples and indigenous communities more generally.

Particularly in the 1980s and 1990s, universities and nongovernmental organizations, as well as UNESCO, have held innumerable meetings, workshops, and conferences on the subject of illicit traffic by. The “Illicit Traffic in Cultural Objects: Law Ethics and the Realities” workshop, however, is distinguished by two important elements. First, it emphasizes the importance of the issue for Asian and Pacific countries. Although there have been some meetings focused on the region of Asia—such as the meeting in Polonnaruwa, Sri Lanka, in 2003; one in Bangkok in 2004; and one specifically including oceanic countries in Brisbane in 1996—these are few compared to meetings held on illicit traffic in Europe and North America. The second aspect is the range of expertise of the participants. Though we are used to seeing dealers, archaeologists, and lawyers debate the subject, this workshop included on-the-ground managers, an expert in systems of detection, as well as specialists in particular fields such as underwater heritage, postconflict restoration. and criminology.

Article 12 of the Convention on the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage, 2003, provides that the States Parties are under obligation at the national level to draw up one or more inventories of the intangible cultural heritage present in their respective territories. Indonesia has been a State Party to the Convention since 2007, but until now, no specific law on intangible cultural heritage has been enacted. In 2010, the Indonesian Ministry of Education and Culture, jointly with UNESCO, published the Practical Handbook for Inventory of Intangible Cultural Heritage of Indonesia. With the legal vacuum, the Handbook became a source for guidelines on the implementation of the inventory obligation in Indonesia; it provides that there shall be a manual inventory and an online inventory. However, in practice, there are two web sites functioning as online inventories, and the contents of the two web sites do not seem to reflect one of the Convention’s purposes, which is awareness. This article scrutinizes the contents of the publicly accessible online inventories and finds that the absence of statutory regulation has resulted in difficulties for those inventories to fulfill the purpose of awareness as mandated by the Convention.

To draw on recent developments and find ways to break the deadlocks that have stymied discussions on cultural property and heritage, the International Cultural Property Society organized the conference, “What Heritage to Preserve?” held at the Pocantico Conference Center of the Rockefeller Brother's Fund from October 19 to 21, 2005.

The World Archaeological Congress' 2nd Indigenous Intercongress, The Uses and Abuses of Archaeology for Indigenous Peoples, convened between November 8 and 12, 2005, at the University of Auckland and Waipapa Marae to examine issues relating to and concerned with indigenous peoples and their past. The organization committee included coconvenors Dr. Joe Watkins, Dr. Caroline Phillips, and Dr. Des Kahotea along with Academic Program Chair Stephanie Ford and Conference Administrator Margaret Rika-Heke. The first Intercongress, on Archaeological Ethics and the Treatment of the Dead, was held in 1989 in Vermillion, South Dakota, and focused on the topics of reburial and repatriation. The Vermillion Accord on the treatment of human remains, an outgrowth of that conference, forms one of the primary ethics documents for the World Archaeological Congress, by which members of the WAC agree to abide in conjunction with the WAC First Code of Ethics.

In November 2006, a discussion thread erupted on the online discussion list of the World Archaeological Congress (WAC) concerning the National Geographic Society's Genographic Project (which is also sponsored by IBM and the Waitt Family Foundation). Initiated in 2005, the Genographic Project is designed to study human population movements in the past based on the analysis of DNA samples voluntarily contributed from people around the world. This project was also designed to move beyond the kinds of ethical and other concerns relating to indigenous rights, appropriation, and group consent (to name a few) that led to the demise of its predecessor, the Human Genome Diversity Project, which began in 1991 and continued until the late 1990s. Such projects owe their origins to significant advancements in biomolecular research and technology studies, which have not only resulted in a genetic revolution in archaeology and related studies but also witnessed growing public interest in ancestry tracing through genetic means.