Thursday 23 August 2012

Legal Battle to Retain Ancient Artefacts: the Aussie View

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There is an interesting report by Ian Cochran on Australian Network News called 'Legal battle to return ancient artefacts', but actually the report is about the Australians' legal battle to RETAIN ancient artefacts, through a new 'immunity from seizure law', which basically means if somebody comes along with information an object on exhibition in an Australian museum is looted, they are sent packing. So much for crowd-sourcing and wikiloot.

This brief report is quite an interesting comparison to the discussions about museum loans and museum seizures in the US, but also introduces the 'indigenous voice' (Garry Murray: "invent laws to return stuff, don't invent laws that give comfort to people who've stolen stuff" - well said).


Sadly I can't embed this, so give the link which works at the moment http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-08-22/legal-battle-to-return-ancient-artefacts/4216674.

2 comments:

Damien Huffer said...

What myself and colleagues are now investigating is what effect these laws will have on illicit antiquities already here. A complex issue, and somewhat uncharted...

Paul Barford said...

To be honest Damien, I found that report very disturbing. Keep us in touch please. Do some more posts on the politics/ideology of "collecting the past" in Australia please.

 
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