Posted on: March 28, 2022 by Richard Harwood QC
In The Rustat Memorial, Jesus College, Cambridge [2022] ECC Ely, the college authorities proposed to remove a memorial to a seventeenth century benefactor, Tobias Rustat, from the grade I listed chapel. The concern was Rustat’s involvement in the slave trade, as an investor in two companies, and the effect which retaining his memorial in the […]
Posted on: March 24, 2022 by Paul Stevenson
Media outlets last week revealed that scientists had found the wreck of Endurance more than a century after she sank in the Weddell Sea, a find many had claimed to be impossible. The find has been hailed by marine archaeologists around the world. The BBC reports that Mensun Bound, a member of the expedition team, […]
Posted on: August 25, 2021 by Rebecca Hawkes-Reynolds
The judgment granting judicial review of the Secretary of State for Transport’s decision to grant the Development Consent Order (DCO) for the tunnel bypass to replace the A303 which runs past Stonehenge is relatively old news as this is written, having been handed down on 30th July. However, the question of Stonehenge and its bypass […]
Posted on: January 18, 2021 by Rebecca Hawkes-Reynolds
Yesterday, Sunday, 17 January 2021, the Communities Secretary Robert Jenrick announced his plans to introduce new legal protections for historic statues and plaques which will be presented to Parliament imminently. The aim of these new measures is for any change to such monuments to go through a system of approval, whether through listed building consent […]
Posted on: November 23, 2020 by Rebecca Hawkes-Reynolds
On Thursday 12 November 2020, Secretary of State for Transport (SoS) Grant Shapps issued a letter granting permission for the construction of a dual carriageway two mile long tunnel that will reroute the existing A303 south of Stonehenge. The scheme is estimated to cost £1.7 billion. This road is the main link between south-east and […]
Posted on: September 8, 2020 by Julia Rodrigues Casella Hommes
We are pleased to announce that the latest issue (Vol XXV, 2) of our journal Art Antiquity & Law is available now, please see below for details on subscriptions and access. Paul Kearns provides the readers with a comprehensive panorama of the international legal regulations on freedom of artistic expression, a fundamental but much overlooked and […]
Posted on: July 28, 2020 by Paul Stevenson
Readers of this blog may recall the 2018 attempted theft by Mark Royden of Salisbury Cathedral’s copy of Magna Carta. Reports confirm that Royden attacked the document’s protective case before being pursued by members of the public, including American tourists, cathedral staff, and stonemasons, who detained him in a works yard outside. In a welcome […]
Posted on: July 1, 2020 by Stephanie Drawdy
The full story of the billion-dollar art collection gathered by Nazi art dealer Hildebrand Gurlitt during World War II may never be told. After years spent trying to determine the collection’s history, the prior owners of a large majority of those works remain unknown. This is a story we have followed with interest throughout its […]
Posted on: June 18, 2020 by Alexander Herman
Amidst the sad turmoil (for some) and the uncertainty (for all) brought on by the pandemic and the resultant lockdown, it is perhaps more forgivable than usual to miss an important anniversary. I am referring here to the fact that 2020 marks 50 years since the adoption of the Convention on the Means of Prohibiting […]
Posted on: June 17, 2020 by Elizabeth Pearson
The destruction of 46,000-year-old sacred Aboriginal rock shelters in Western Australia has prompted a national inquiry and calls for urgent reform of Indigenous cultural heritage law. During a mine expansion project, Rio Tinto detonated explosives in the Juukan Gorge in May, destroying two deep cave sites of the Puutu Kunti Kurrama and Pinikura People (PKKP). […]