Hostname: page-component-8448b6f56d-sxzjt Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-23T14:17:59.065Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

In Search of the Holy Grail of the Conflict of Laws of Cultural Property: Recent Trends in European Private International Law Codifications

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 November 2020

Tamás Szabados
Tamás Szabados*
Affiliation:
Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest, Hungary; Email: szabados@ajk.elte.hu
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Most private international laws do not address cultural property specifically but, instead, apply the general lex rei sitae rule also to artifacts. Legal scholarship has revealed the flaws of the rigid application of the lex rei sitae principle to cultural goods and has proposed alternative connecting factors, such as the lex originis principle, to prevent forum and law shopping in this field. Reacting to the criticisms, some of the more recent private international law codifications have decided on the adoption of specific rules on stolen and illegally exported cultural goods that combine the lex rei sitae and the lex originis rules and provide room for the parties’ autonomy. This article draws the conclusion that these more recent legislative solutions do not necessarily promote legal certainty and predictability with regard to the governing law and are far from being a Holy Grail for the conflict of laws of cultural property, whether on a national level or within the European Union.

Type
Article
Information
International Journal of Cultural Property , Volume 27 , Issue 3 , August 2020 , pp. 323 - 347
Check for updates
Copyright
© The Author(s), 2020. Published by Cambridge University Press

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Anton, Michael. 2010. Internationales Kulturgüterprivat- und Zivilverfahrensrecht. Berlin: Gruyter.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Armbrüster, Christian. 2004. “La revendication de biens culturels du point de vue du droit international privé.” Revue critique de droit international privé 93, no. 4: 723–44.Google Scholar
Arnold, Stefan. 2015. “Eigentumsschutz und Verkehrsschutz bei Kunstgegenständen im österreichischen Kollisions- und Privatrecht.” Austrian Law Journal 1: 3–22.Google Scholar
Basedow, Jürgen. 2013. The Law of Open Societies: Private Ordering and Public Regulation of International Relations. General Course on Private International Law. Collected Courses of the Hague Academy of International Law, vol. 360. The Hague: Brill.Google Scholar
Biondi, Andrea. 1997. “The Merchant, the Thief and the Citizen: The Circulation of Works of Art within the European Union.” Common Market Law Review 34, no. 5: 1173–95.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bortoluzzi, Chiara. 2012. “La directive 93/7/CEE et la libre circulation des biens culturels à l’intérieur de l’Union européenne : bilan et perspectives après 20 ans de mise en œuvre.” Revue du droit de l’Union européenne 3: 487–522.Google Scholar
Carruthers, Janeen M. 2005. The Transfer of Property in the Conflict of Laws. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Chechi, Alessandro. 2014. The Settlement of International Cultural Heritage Disputes. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chechi, Alessandro. 2018. “When Private International Law Meets Cultural Heritage Law.” In Yearbook of Private International Law, edited by Bonomi, A. and Romano, G. P., 269–94. Cologne: Otto Schmidt.Google Scholar
Cornu, Marie. 2015. “Recasting Restitution: Interactions between EU and International Law.” Uniform Law Review 20, no. 4: 637–46.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
deClippele, Marie-Sophie, and Lambrecht, Lucie. 2015. “Art Law and Balances: Increased Protection of Cultural Heritage Law vs. Private Ownership: Towards Clash or Balance?” International Journal of Cultural Property 22, no. 2–3: 259–78.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dutoit, Bernard. 1997. Commentaire de la loi fédérale du 18 décembre 1987. Basel: Helbing & Lichtenhahn.Google Scholar
Dutta, Anatol. 2006. “Civil Claims of Foreign Sovereigns for Lost Taxes: The Big Tobacco Cases and the Revenue Rule.” European Business Organization Law Review 7, no. 3: 697–724.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dutta, Anatol. 2007. “Vollstreckung in öffentlichrechtlichen Forderungen ausländischer Staaten.” Praxis des Internationalen Privat- und Verfahrensrechts 27, no. 2: 109–17.Google Scholar
European Parliament. 2017. “Cross-border Restitution Claims of Looted Works of Art and Cultural Goods: European Added Value Assessment, Accompanying the European Parliament’s Legislative Initiative Report” (Rapporteur: Pavel Svoboda). http://www.europarl.europa.eu/RegData/etudes/STUD/2017/610988/EPRS_STU(2017)610988_EN.pdf (accessed 10 September 2020).Google Scholar
Fincham, Derek. 2008. “How Adopting the Lex Origins Rule Can Impede the Flow of Illicit Cultural Property.” Columbia Journal of Law and the Arts 32, no. 1: 111–50.Google Scholar
Frigo, Manlio. 2016. Circulation des biens culturels, détermination de la loi applicable et méthodes de règlement des litiges. The Hague: Académie de Droit international de la Haye.Google Scholar
Gillies, Lorna E. 2015. “The Contribution of Jurisdiction as a Technique of Demand Side Regulation in Claims for the Recovery of Cultural Objects.” Journal of Private International Law 11, no. 2: 295–316.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Górka, Maciej. 2016. “Directive 2014/60/EU: A New Legal Framework for Ensuring the Return of Cultural Objects within the European Union.” Santander Art and Culture Law Review 2, no. 2: 27–34.Google Scholar
Hawkins, Ashton, Rothman, Richard A., and Goldstein, David B.. 1995. “A Tale of Two Innocents: Creating an Equitable Balance between the Rights of Former Owners and Good Faith Purchasers of Stolen Art.” Fordham Law Review 64, no. 1: 49–96.Google Scholar
Institute of International Law. 1991. The International Sale of Works of Art from the Angle of the Protection of the Cultural Heritage. Basel: Institute of International Law.Google Scholar
Jayme, Erik. 1994. Entartete Kunst und internationales Privatrecht. Heidelberg: Universitätsverlag Winter.Google Scholar
Jayme, Erik. 2005. “Globalization in Art Law: Clash of Interests and International Tendencies.” Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law 38, no. 4: 928–45.Google Scholar
Jefferson, M. 1980. “An Attempt to Evade the Lex Situs Rule for Stolen Goods.” Law Quarterly Review 96: 508–11.Google Scholar
Kienle, Florian, and Weller, Marc-Philippe. 2004. “Die Vindikation gestohlener Kulturgüter im IPR.” Praxis des Internationalen Privat- und Verfahrensrechts 24, no. 4: 290–94.Google Scholar
Lee, Monique. 2009. “A Choice of Law Dilemma: The Conflict and Reconciliation of Laws Governing Cross-Border Transfers of Stolen Art.” Cardozo Public Law Policy and Ethics Journal 7, no. 3: 719–55.Google Scholar
Magri, Geo. 2013. “Beni culturali e acquisto a non domino.” Rivista di diritto civile 59, no. 3: 741–66.Google Scholar
Mansel, Heinz-Peter. 1988. “DeWeerth v. Baldinger: Kollisionsrechtliches zum Erwerb gestohlener Kunstwerke.” Praxis des Internationalen Privat- und Verfahrensrechts 8, no. 5: 268–71.Google Scholar
Martiny, Dieter. 2012. “Beachtung ausländischer kulturgüterrechtlicher Normen im internationalen Schuldvertragsrecht.” Praxis des Internationalen Privat- und Verfahrensrechts 32, no. 6: 559–69.Google Scholar
Müller-Chen, Markus, and Renold, Marc-André. 2009. “Kulturgütertransfer und internationales Privatrecht.” In Kultur, Kunst, Recht: schweizerisches und internationales Recht, edited by Mosimann, P., Renold, M.-A., and Raschèr, A. F. G., 292–301. Basel: Helbing Lichtenhahn.Google Scholar
Jiménez, Ochoa, Julia, María. 2019. “Conflict of Laws and the Return of Indigenous People’s Cultural Property: A Latin American Perspective.” International Journal of Cultural Property 26, no. 4: 437–56.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Palmer, Norman. 1994. “Recovering Stolen Art.” Current Legal Problems 47, 2: 215–54.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Palmer, Norman. 2015. Art, Adventure and Advocacy. Builth Wells: Institute of Art and Law.Google Scholar
Reichelt, Gerte. 1985. “International Protection of Cultural Property.” Uniform Law Review 13, no. 1: 43–153.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Reichelt, Gerte. 1986. “Kulturgüterschutz und internationales Privatrecht.” Praxis des Internationalen Privat- und Verfahrensrechts 6, no. 2: 73–75.Google Scholar
Renold, Marc-André. 2006. “An Important Swiss Decision on the Giant Antique Mogul Gold Coins.” International Journal of Cultural Property 13, no. 3: 361–69.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Roodt, Christa. 2015. Private International Law, Art and Cultural Heritage. Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Roodt, Christa, and Miller, David Carey. 2013. “Stolen Cultural Property: Implications of Vitium Reale in Private Law and Private International Law.” Transnational Dispute Management 10, no. 5: 1–9.Google Scholar
Schneider, Marina. 2016. “The 1995 UNIDROIT Convention: An Indispensable Complement to the 1970 UNESCO Convention and an Inspiration for the 2014/60/EU Directive.” Santander Art and Culture Law Review 2, no. 2: 149–64.Google Scholar
Siehr, Kurt. 1998. “The Protection of Cultural Property: The 1995 UNIDROIT Convention and the EEC Instruments of 1992/93 Compared.” Uniform Law Review 3, no. 2–3: 671–83.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Siehr, Kurt. 2015. “Private International Law and the Difficult Problem to Return Illegally Exported Cultural Property.” Uniform Law Review 20, no. 4: 503–15.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Song, Ho-Young. 2016. “International Legal Instruments and New Judicial Principles for Restitution of Illegally Exported Cultural Properties.” Penn State Journal of Law and International Affairs 4, no. 2: 718–48.Google Scholar
Symeonides, Symeon C. 2005. “A Choice-of-Law Rule for Conflicts Involving Stolen Cultural Property.” Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law 38, no. 4: 1177–98.Google Scholar
Tóth, Sándor. 2016. “Seuso-kincs: amit titkolnak Magyarországon, az angolok közzéteszik.” HVG, 10 October 2016. https://hvg.hu/kultura/20161010_Seusokincs_amit_titkolnak_Magyarorszagon_az_angolok_kozzeteszik (accessed 10 September 2020).Google Scholar
Urbinati, Sabrina. 2018. “The European Union Legal Framework and the Fight against the Illicit Trafficking of Cultural Property Coming from Situations of Armed Conflict.” Santander Art and Culture Law Review 2, no. 4: 51–70.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Vadász, Vanda. 2017. “Lessons of Sevso Case: Restitution Challenges of the Illegally Exported Cultural Property.” In Hungarian Yearbook of International and European Law 2016 edited by Szabó, M., Láncos, P. L., and Varga, R., 39–58. The Hague: Eleven.Google Scholar
Weidner, Amalie. 2001. Kulturgüter als res extra commercium im internationalen Sachenrecht. Berlin: de Gruyter.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Weller, Matthias. 2017. “Cultural Objects, protection of.” In Encyclopedia of Private International Law, edited by Basedow, J. et al., 498–506. Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar.CrossRefGoogle Scholar