Category Archives: Climate and Environment

Bonaire v. Netherlands: Climate Change Impacts on Island Communities’ Cultural Heritage Before Dutch Courts

Posted on: February 12, 2024 by Alina Holzhausen

Seven residents and Dutch nationals of Bonaire, a Dutch special municipality in the southern Caribbean, have launched, together with Greenpeace Netherlands, a legal action against the Dutch government over its failure to protect the Islanders against climate change impacts. Based on the right to life (Article 2) and the right to respect for private and […]

Artwork-Based Activism, Climate Change and the Right to Protest

Posted on: June 26, 2023 by Tom Lewis

On 12 June 2023 two environmental protesters were convicted by a Vatican court of aggravated damage  to the Laocoön statue, one of the most precious treasures of the Vatican Museums’ collection, believed to have been carved in Rhodes around 40-30 BCE. The protestors, Guido Viero and Ester Goffi, are members of the group Last Generation […]

Ivory Act to be Extended to Include Five New Species

Posted on: June 16, 2023 by Lilian Palmer

On 23 May, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) announced in a press release that the Ivory Act 2018 will be extended to include five new species. A government consultation found that, of the 98% of respondents who expressed a preference, 93% were in favour of broadening the Act to include the […]

Attacks on art and the law’s response: what fate awaits the Van Gogh soup throwers?

Posted on: October 17, 2022 by Emily Gould

Protests involving works of art and cultural property are nothing new. From the slashing of the Rokeby Venus in the National Gallery in 1914 to the defacing of a Rothko mural at Tate Modern almost a century later, those seeking to draw attention to a cause have long recognised the publicity value of attacks on […]

A Round-Up of Recent Historic Environment Developments

Posted on: March 27, 2020 by Rebecca Hawkes-Reynolds

The fate of Stonehenge and the A303 has reared its ugly head again, or perhaps not. When the Chancellor announced the Budget on 11 March 2020 he confirmed the Government’s continued commitment to the Stonehenge scheme, saying it is “going to get it done”. However, this does not mean the scheme has been given the […]

The Royal Shakespeare Company severed its ties with British Petroleum

Posted on: October 18, 2019 by Julia Rodrigues Casella Hommes

As London is once more taken over by climate change protests, a recent news story from the Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC) serves as yet another (very timely) reminder that the arts and cultural sector can no longer remain isolated from the climate change debate, as we have previously discussed here. Just days before Extinction Rebellion’s […]

Notre Dame Fire leads to environmental lawsuit

Posted on: August 27, 2019 by Julia Rodrigues Casella Hommes

Following the devastating fire at Notre Dame Cathedral last April in Paris, which we covered here, and in yet another example of how climate activism has recently become entangled with the arts and the cultural sector, there has been strong criticism from one environmental activist group in Paris regarding lead poisoning concerns. In case you […]