Posted on: May 19, 2016 by Alexander Herman
At long last… It was announced in the Queen’s speech yesterday that the UK Parliament would see the introduction of a bill to ratify the 1954 Hague Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict. This is a positive sign and one that had been hinted at (with little more) by […]
Posted on: May 11, 2016 by Alexander Herman
An important piece of legislation, brought into force around the time of the UK’s accession to the UNESCO 1970 Convention in 2002, has at last been used as the basis for a conviction. The statute, the Dealing in Cultural Objects (Offences) Act 2003, sets out an offence for dishonestly dealing in tainted cultural objects. The term ‘tainted’ for […]
Posted on: April 20, 2016 by Emily Gould
It was heartening to read the report by Cahal Milmo in the i newspaper last week about the first application of the new Sentencing Guidelines for theft offences. The guidelines urge courts to take into account the special nature of heritage assets when sentencing offenders for theft crimes, giving official recognition to the devastating harm […]
Posted on: April 19, 2016 by Alexander Herman
Yesterday, IAL Senior Researcher Emily Gould and I were fortunate enough to be invited by Historic England‘s Mark Harrison to the All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) for the Protection of Cultural Heritage meeting at the Palace of Westminster. This is the group launched last November, one of the priorities of which is to lobby within the UK […]
Posted on: March 4, 2016 by Emily Gould
Last week I was musing on the way in which the same themes seem to pervade many different areas of the shady world of art crime. Continuing along this track, I wanted to offer a few thoughts on the role technology is increasingly playing here, from revealing forgeries to assessing damage from looting. While scientific […]
Posted on: March 2, 2016 by Emily Gould
News broke this week that fourteen men have been convicted of plotting to steal artefacts from UK museums estimated to be worth up to £57 million. After a four-year police operation, the final four defendants – the ‘generals’ of the gang – were brought to justice at Birmingham Crown Court on Monday. They’ll be sentenced […]
Posted on: February 19, 2016 by Emily Gould
We tend to think of street art as highly contemporary – edgy, modern and up to the minute in its commentary on the social and political controversies of the day. But what about cave paintings, medieval etchings, scrawls on the walls of the ancient city of Pompeii? The once-widespread notion that graffiti and street art […]
Posted on: January 14, 2016 by Emily Gould
Next month (February 2016) the new theft guidelines announced by the Sentencing Council last October will come into force. For the first time, the significant harm which can result from crimes like theft of public artworks, stripping of lead from historic churches and the activities of ‘nighthawkers’ is being officially recognized within the English criminal […]
Posted on: January 12, 2016 by Alexander Herman
As of last month, the UK has brought into force the necessary regulations to implement the 2014/60 EU Directive on the return of cultural objects unlawfully removed from the territory of a Member State. In fact, the deadline for all EU Member States to bring about this change in their national law was 18 December 2015. […]
Posted on: December 1, 2015 by Alexander Herman
There was a very interesting talk last night on cultural heritage and international law delivered by Roger O’Keefe, professor of international law at University College London. Prof O’Keefe’s paper, presented as the Harry Weinrebe Annual Memorial Lecture at the British Institute of International and Comparative Law (BIICL), was entitled ‘The Protection of Cultural Property, the Maintenance of International Peace […]