Posted on: February 22, 2018 by Emily Gould
Installing living bees, exhibiting fatbergs and importing 3D printed firearms…just another average day in the life of a registrar it seems! We were delighted to attend the latest of the regular meetings of the UK Registrars Group (UKRG) on Friday 9th February at Wellcome Collection. Attendees were treated to a fascinating series of talks about […]
Posted on: December 12, 2017 by Holly Woodhouse
A golden crown dating from the fourth-century BC will be returned to Turkey following an out-of-court settlement between a Turkish national residing in Scotland and the Government of Turkey. The crown, reported to have been valued at £250,000, was in the possession of Edinburgh café owner Murat Aksakalli, who claimed to have inherited it from […]
Posted on: November 21, 2017 by Julia Rodrigues Casella Hommes
A recent finding of a jury in a Federal District Court in Brooklyn, New York City,[1] has opened the door for greater protection for graffiti artists. At the core of disputes between graffiti artists and the real property owners their works adorn often lies the age-old debate as to whose property rights prevail: those of […]
Posted on: September 14, 2017 by Alexander Herman
Along with the Centre for Commercial Law Studies at Queen Mary, University of London, we were happy to host US attorney Nicholas O’Donnell last night for a talk on Nazi-looted art and the ongoing attempts at reclaiming lost works from museums and private collections in the US. Nicholas was in London promoting his new book, […]
Posted on: September 11, 2017 by Emily Gould
“Scientists shoot rocks!” This was the opening line of a fascinating discussion exploring innovative methods of evidencing the destruction of cultural heritage in conflict zones held at the V&A last Friday evening (8 September). The event was part of the V&A’s ‘Culture in Crisis’ programme which seeks to raise awareness of the need to protect […]
Posted on: August 9, 2017 by Emily Gould
As promised in our post last week, having looked at developments in the fight against heritage crime in the UK, we’re now turning our attention to the international context. We were considering in particular a number of interesting developments across a range of disciplines: the law, military practice, technology and community engagement. As regards the […]
Posted on: July 31, 2017 by Emily Gould
Rarely a day goes by, it seems, without another concerning and saddening story about cultural heritage destruction. Whether it is the devastation of ancient sites in war-ravaged states such as Syria, Libya or Yemen or the ruin of yet another village church in the UK through lead theft, the loss is felt far and wide, […]
Posted on: May 18, 2017 by Emily Gould
Tomorrow (Friday 19th May), a new convention intended to tackle international cultural property crime will be opened for signature by the Council of Europe (the ‘CoE’, Europe’s leading human rights organisation, including 47 member states, set up to promote democracy and protect human rights and the rule of law in Europe; not to be confused with […]
Posted on: February 28, 2017 by Alexander Herman
In Yasmina Reza’s 1994 play ‘Art‘, three male friends spend much time discussing the question, ‘What is art?’ The reason is that one of the characters, Serge, has bought a work from a popular contemporary artist that is more or less just a white canvas. More or less, because there is some debate as to whether […]
Posted on: February 23, 2017 by Emily Gould
*Update: On the day of going to press, we later discovered that, with impressive speed and efficiency, the Bill received Royal Assent, so look out for further posts on the Cultural Property (Armed Conflicts) Act 2017! As of this Monday (20 February) the UK is now one step closer to ratifying the 1954 Hague Convention […]