Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin - Juristische Fakultät - European Law School

Cultural property, cultural heritage, in the Western world at first had almost the same meaning as art; culture was the “high culture”, the “opera-house” definition of it. The terms acquired a broader content mainly at the time that International Conventions on relevant issues started being discussed and adopted.
The discussions about many issues concerning culture, cultural heritage, cultural property, cultural patrimony (various names/titles, which are not identical) are still heated and different arguments are presented by the legal scholars of the various countries, of the various legal systems.
Export prohibitions or restrictions are among the most important issues in regard of cultural objects. Given the fact that during the previous centuries – especially the 18th and the 19th – many cultural objects were removed from their countries of origin, without any care about the legality of these acts, most of the countries-victims enacted legislation protecting their own cultural property, their own cultural heritage. Among the protective measures were and are export prohibitions or export restrictions.
Several International Conventions on cultural property issues have been adopted during the last 50 years. Probably the two more important, as far as the effects they have, are the 1970 UNESCO Convention on the Means of Prohibiting and Preventing the Illicit Import, Export, and Transfer of Ownership of Cultural Property and the 1995 UNIDROIT Convention on Stolen or Illegally Exported Cultural Objects.

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