CPD Course:
An Introduction to
Cultural Heritage
and the Law:
Looting Tombs,
Wrecks and Museums,
and Trafficking Gold,
Silver, Porcelain and
Other Treasure in Peace,
Conflict and Terror

This 3-hour seminar will provide an introduction to the international regime intended to protect cultural heritage.  Whether it was the attempted sale of bronze fountain heads looted from the Old Summer Palace in Beijing in the nineteenth century, allegations that terrorist organizations like Daesh are funding their operations by looting and trafficking archaeological treasures, or the videos of terrorist groups destroying museum collections or culturally significant sites, in recent years there have been many highly controversial issues involving cultural heritage around the world.

The seminar will begin with consideration of what is meant by the term "cultural heritage" and how international law has been developed to try and protect cultural heritage.  The seminar will consider the overlaps with art law and domestic laws intended to protect antiquities and relics but will focus on the six international conventions which are intended to protect what may now be termed cultural heritage.  Thus the seminar will consider topics such as the protection of cultural heritage in armed conflict, prohibiting and preventing trafficking of cultural heritage, the interaction between natural and cultural heritage, looted and stolen cultural heritage, protecting the underwater cultural heritage, and attempts to safeguard the intangible cultural heritage.

• Cultural heritage or cultural property?
• The beginnings of international protection of cultural heritage;
• Protecting cultural heritage in armed conflict;
• Prohibiting and preventing trafficking of cultural heritage;
• The interaction between natural and cultural heritage;
• Looted and stolen cultural heritage;
• Hong Kong’s role in the trafficking of heritage;
• Wrecks, gold, silver and porcelain;
• Protecting the underwater cultural heritage;
• What is intangible cultural heritage?
• Safeguarding the intangible cultural heritage;
• Cultural heritage laws in China and Hong Kong;
• The business of cultural heritage;
• The politics of cultural heritage laws.