Cultural Objects and Reparative Justice : A Legal and Historical Analysis

Cultural Objects and Reparative Justice provides a comprehensive legal and historical analysis surrounding a highly debated current question: Where should cultural objects that were removed without consent be located? This book follows an innovative, interdisciplinary approach based in law, history, art history, anthropology, and archaeology and proposes a paradigm for reparations.

Tracing the historical foundations of the current legal framework, the work closely examines three factors that heavily informed the cultural heritage debate since the late eighteenth century: the rise of the encyclopaedic museum, the development of archaeology as a science, and the appropriation of objects in the context of armed conflict and colonialism. Each of these explorations is enriched by examples from around the globe and assessed on the international, national, and local level. Subjecting contested objects -such as the Parthenon Sculptures, those from the Yuanmingyuan Palace, the Benin artifacts, looted archaeological artefacts and human remains, and artwork stolen during the Holocaust - to this holistic approach enables a contextualisation of the unique history of appropriation of these objects.

Cultural Objects and Reparative Justice outlines how current cultural heritage laws and ethical guidelines with respect to cultural heritage derive from a background of imperialism and colonialism. The book advocates for a new structure based on reparation, restitution, repatriation, compensation, and market regulation to cease perpetuating past harms and to disincentivize new ones.

Patty Gerstenblith, Distinguished Research Professor of Law; Faculty Director, Center for Art, Museum & Cultural Heritage Law,

Patty Gerstenblith is a Distinguished Research Professor at DePaul University College of Law and Faculty Director of its Center for Art, Museum and Cultural Heritage Law. She was appointed by President Clinton as Member and later by President Obama as Chair of the Cultural Property Advisory Committee in the US Department of State. Other past and present roles include Research Associate of the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Anthropology and Archaeology, Fulbright Specialist working with the Jordanian Department of Antiquities, Dartmouth College Montgomery Fellow, President of the US Committee of the Blue Shield, Chair of the Blue Shield International Working Group on Illegal Trafficking in Cultural Objects, and Editor of the International Journal of Cultural Property.