Category Archives: Human Remains

Recent Developments in Art and Cultural Property Law

Posted on: November 5, 2015 by Ruth Redmond-Cooper

A One-Day Conference Saturday, 28 November 2015  9:30 am to 5:00 pm NOTRE DAME UNIVERSITY, LONDON CAMPUS 1 SUFFOLK STREET, LONDON  SW1Y 4HX (NEXT TO TRAFALGAR SQUARE)   Including the following presentations: Litigating street art: the story of the Folkestone Banksy and its return from America Tim Maxwell, Partner, Boodle Hatfield LLP Keeping it “street”: the […]

Ethiopian loot and human remains… still in Britain

Posted on: September 7, 2015 by Alexander Herman

There was a story this morning in the Guardian which once again brought to light the requests by Ethiopia for the return of the remains of one of the country’s royal princes, Prince Alemayehu, currently buried at Windsor Castle near London. The young prince had been brought to England in 1868 following the destruction of the Abyssinian fortress town of Magdala at […]

Kennewick Man is back: The pitfalls of modern science

Posted on: July 1, 2015 by Alexander Herman

An article published on 18 June 2015 in the scientific weekly Nature has given the world a new appreciation of the origins of the human remains known as ‘Kennewick Man’. The remains were discovered in the State of Washington in 1996 and preliminary studies showed that Kennewick Man was roughly 9,000 years old and had no noticeable morphological connection […]

New book on Richard III discovery

Posted on: April 15, 2015 by Alexander Herman

A book has recently been published by the team from Leicester University that uncovered the bones of Richard III in a Leicester car park in February 2013. Entitled The Bones of a King: Richard III Rediscovered, it was written by the Greyfriars research team with Maev Kennedy and Len Foxhall. Of course we have commented on […]

Richard III to be reburied this week at Leicester Cathedral

Posted on: March 23, 2015 by Ruth Redmond-Cooper

The remains of Richard III, the last English monarch to die in battle (at the Battle of Bosworth Field in 1485), will be reinterred this week at Leicester Cathedral. Reports show a high turnout for those wanting to pay their last respects: a queue of some 2,000 people stretched its way around the Cathedral today. The human […]

Tasmanian human remains returned from Berlin

Posted on: August 1, 2014 by Alexander Herman

The human remains of an Aboriginal woman from Tasmania who had lived in the early nineteenth century were returned to Hobart, Tasmania earlier today. The remains had been acquired by the Anatomy Institute in Berlin, Germany in the 1840s and, more recently, resided in the collection of Berlin’s Charité Medical Museum. The Charité Museum, in returning the […]

Challenge over reburial of Richard III dismissed

Posted on: May 23, 2014 by Richard Harwood QC

In a lengthy, elegant and literary judgment the High Court has dismissed the challenge to the decision to rebury King Richard III in Leicester Cathedral. A three-judge Divisional Court of Lady Justice Hallett, Mr Justice Ouseley and Mr Justice Haddon-Cave ruled that there had been no duty on the Secretary of State for Justice to […]

More royal remains?

Posted on: February 6, 2014 by Ruth Redmond-Cooper

Following the discovery of the remains of Richard III in a car park in Leicester, scientists at Winchester have expressed cautious optimism that they may have identified part of the skeleton of King Arthur ‘the Great’.  King Arthur, who fought the invading Danes more than 1,000 years ago, was renowned as a wise and merciful […]

Richard III: judicial review proceedings adjourned

Posted on: November 26, 2013 by Ruth Redmond-Cooper

The High Court in London has adjourned until early next year proceedings  in the legal battle over where the remains of Richard III should be buried. Members of the Plantagenet Alliance are challenging the decision to reinter the bones in Leicester Cathedral and wish to have him buried in York Minster.  The judicial review proceedings […]

IAL seminars: ‘Human Remains and the Law’ (13 Dec) and ‘Culture and Conflict’ (27 Jan 2014)

Posted on: November 12, 2013 by Ruth Redmond-Cooper

‘Human Remains and the Law’ – 13th December 2013 – London A one-day conference with the generous support of the Natural History Museum The treatment of human remains, whether contained in museum collections or discovered during the course of building or other works, gives rise to a host of moral, ethical and legal issues. Should […]