Summary Report of Conference on "A new perspective on the protection of cultural property through criminal law" (original) (raw)
Related papers
Criminal Law in the Context of Environmental, Natural and Cultural Heritage Crimes
Agora International Journal of Juridical Sciences, 2023
The evolution of law follows the evolution of society and the socioeconomic relations that generate legal relations. Lately, environmental crimes among which we mention: pollution, contamination with dangerous chemical substances of abiotic environmental factors; wildlife poaching; deforestation in violation of the forestry regime, etc., are frequent, entering a spectrum of everyday normality. At the same time, the poaching of cultural heritage is a new element that has come under the focus of criminal investigation bodies, although the trade in artefacts and priceless heritage values has been consumed for a long time. The Romanian authorities and legal specialists easily pass over existing cases affecting the environment and cultural heritage, as these important paradigms for humanity are not active subjects of law. The correction of some characters whose aim is to enrich themselves through the destruction of abiotic environmental factors and the sale of cultural heritage objects, can only be done in an organized and focused way, including through the development of a criminal code of the environment and cultural and natural heritage. The code will have to capture the existence of crimes in relation to the action or inaction of individuals and in relation to the legal ethical principles of the environment and heritage accepted by the international community, which gives more and more importance to this segment, which is imposed in constitutional law of the signatory countries of international conventions. Our material launches some ideas and puts into scientific debate the possibility of creating a unitary legal framework to prevent the destruction of elements of cultural and natural heritage and to protect the environment.
Yearbook of International & European Union and Comparative Law, 2022
The protection of cultural heritage in our days is a subject of international criminal law given that the first sentences by international courts that paved the way for inserting asset protection as an autonomous and ad hoc crime into an international statute were those of the International Criminal Court (ICC). The polymorphism of protection needs is connected to the versatility which includes every legal asset to be protected and which arises from both domestic and international law. The cultural asset is characterized by both certain and generic attributes, such as immaterial or tangible, movable or immovable. The collateral damage caused during armed conflicts, the dangers that arise, the destruction of the illicit trafficking of works of art as part of what is called cultural heritage is an issue that requires the preservation of intangible cultural heritage. The destruction and impoverishment of cultural heritage also opens the way to punishment given the individual responsibility of the subject who destroys a protected asset, simultaneously highlighting the anthropocentric nature of the interest thus read. This is the panorama of the present paper which is based both on the doctrine and on the jurisprudence of the international courts of recent years helping us understand what kind of protection we need and what cultural protection means.
Illicit Trade in Cultural Objects under the Spanish Law: The Cabeza de mujer joven Case
Santander Art and Culture Law Review (9) 2 / 2023, 2023
This article seeks to introduce a brief description of the rules of protection of cultural heritage goods in the Spanish Law, using the example of a mediatic case of illicit trade, where the regulations of civil law, criminal law, and administrative law were applied and where the freedoms inherent in the right of ownership collided with the rules on properties of cultural interest. First, it provides an overview of the Spanish cultural heritage law, beginning with the constitutional mandate of assuming and promoting the protection of Spanish cultural heritage, and thereafter focusing on the concept of private ownership and its limits, in accordance with the social function of all property rights under the 1978 Spanish Constitution. Second, it describes a well-known case of illicit trade, focused on a valuable painting by Pablo Picasso. The work Cabeza de mujer joven (Head of a young woman) belonged to a private owner who decided to sell it internationally, using the services of a well-known auction house. When the required permission for exportation was denied by the Spanish public administration, the owner commenced a court proceeding aimed at changing the decision, but also planned to send the painting abroad using a yacht on his property. Thirdly, the article’s conclusion reflects on the level of severity of the Spanish legislation as applied in the case, in the context of the balance between cultural heritage protection and the freedom of disposition inherent to the right of property ownership.
2019
The objective of the article is to present criminal law provisions and also the actual effects of fighting crime in the area of protection of cultural property in Poland since the beginning of the 21 st century. A thesis has been formulated, according to which the protection of cultural property arising from the criminal law remains the key determinant of forming the cultural security of the Third Polish Republic. The conducted analysis shows that the effective forming of cultural security of the Third Polish Republic depends on ensuring the appropriate protection for the property of special significance for culture. Actions taken in this area of the cultural security fit with the postulate of protecting the cultural heritage. An important aspect of actions un-dertaken by the state is to formulate and apply the criminal law provisions. On the basis of the presented arguments it can be stated that at the beginning of the 21 st century the practice of counteracting and fighting crime against cultural property in the Third Polish Republic depended to a significant extent on the activity of the Police and the Border Guard.
The Applicable Law to Cultural Property
International Journal of Liberal Arts and Social Science, 2016
Importance of cultural assets for humanity, requires to be passed on to the next generations. This situation requires to physical protection along with its protection within the place it belongs. Unfortunately, cultural assets changed hands for centuries as legal or illegal ways, destroyed and destructed. Once in Emperor Times the cultural assets were moved from the colonies to the emperor centers and today it continues as illegal cultural assets trade. Therefore, precautions of protecting the asset in source country, are inefficient once the artifact is outside of the country, and cultural assets are facing the variety of procedures in different law systems in international platform. In this study, the applicable law to conflicts with foreign element regarding cultural assets which changing hands in the international area, will be examined. As is known, general principal in private international law, real rights to lex rei sitae (also called as lex situs) meaning the wherever the goods is that place law will be applied. This principal, is able to applied most legal systems today. So, is it that cultural assets should be bound to strict lex rei stae rule without an exception? It should be strongly noted that, due to the cultural assets are different than ordinary trade goods and the effect of international court decisions can be effective on illegal art trade, requires the handling of the applicable law in a different understanding.
The Formation and Development of the International Legal Protection of Cultural Property
Global Journal of Cultural Studies, 2022
The article considers the formation and evolution of the international legal protection of cultural property from ancient times to the present. The purpose of the article is to identify the prerequisites and features of each historical period in the development of international law in the context of the international legal protection of cultural property, as well as to systematize the relevant international legal acts. The authors provide their own periodization of the development of international legal protection of cultural property. It is concluded that the initial stage of codification of the international legal protection of cultural property is directly related to the development of the rules and customs of warfare.
Culture. Society. Economy. Politics
This article presents three interdisciplinary and community-serving museum projects carried out by the Portuguese Judiciary Police Museum (Museu de Polícia Judiciária – MPJ), two of which are based on original ideas and unprecedented procedures. All three of them are ‘out of the walls’ crime prevention projects for the protection of Portuguese cultural heritage. The first project (starting in 1996) was dedicated to museums, the second (2003) to religious art in places of worship, and the third (2007) to the Portuguese unique and identitary Tile Heritage. The common genesis of the three projects is rooted on the one hand in two competencies of the Portuguese Judiciary Police (Polícia Judiciária, PJ) - crime prevention and crimes linked to cultural heritage – and on the other hand in museum concepts emerged in the last fifty years in museum studies - e. g. Declaration of Santiago do Chile 1972, ICOM Round Table; ‘Siena Charter’ ICOM Italy 2014; new museum definition ICOM Prag 2022. Th...