The ICME web site has recently been updated with several items of interest for ICOM members. 

PAPERS
The majority of papers presented during the ICME sessions and the concurrent session " Museums and Living Heritage" are now available for downloading at http://icme.icom.museum - additional papers will soon join them.

PEOPLE
The list of ICME board members for 2004-7 is also available on our web site.

REPATRIATION
Apropos the recent ICOM-L messages on "INTERCOM/resolution of cultural property disputes?", ICME board member Martin Skydstrup has written a review article of the joint INTERCOM, ICME and ICOM Legal Affairs Committee session on repatriation in Seoul. His article "Should ICOM Adjudicate Cultural Property Disputes?" is also available at http://icme.icom.museum or directly at http://museumsnett.no/icme/icme2004/repatriation.html . The abstract follows:

Abstract 
What role should ICOM play in cultural property disputes? Does the current ICOM approach underwritten by the Code of Ethics suffice? If not, should ICOM consider the introduction of dispute settlement such as arbitration or mediation? These questions were addressed by a joint panel at the ICOM Triennial General Conference in Seoul, where Marilyn Phelan gave the keynote entitled Legal and Ethical Considerations in the Repatriation of Illegally Exported and Stolen Cultural Property: Is there a Means to Settle the Disputes? Phelan argued that there is currently no legal regime in place to address adequately the issues relating to the restitution of illegally exported and/or stolen cultural property. By choosing to illustrate this by four rather clear cut and morally compelling cases of illicit exported and looted art, Phelan made a poignant case for the introduction of new means of dispute resolution. Responding to Phelan’s proposal Harrie Leyten and W. Richard West, Jr. came down in favor of an informal mediation option as opposed to formal and binding arbitration. The reviewer argues that the disparities between the panelists reveal more fundamental differences in their conception of museum collections as cultural property. If the problem can be reduced to a conventional ownership issue, then it is consistent to argue as Phelan did in favor of an International Arbitration Panel. If the issue at hand is a postcolonial Nation’s ability to display its heritage or a local community’s control over its ceremonial objects, then the problem hinges on more than conventional ownership notions and mediation or other negotiated proceedings would seem the most appropriate remedy to apply, as the two respondents both argued. Overall, the panel revealed a need to examine fundamental ownership conceptions of museum collections with respect to the relevant stakeholders in any exploration of mediation or arbitration as a mean to resolve disputes.

The papers themselves from this session are planned for publishing by INTERCOM: http://intercom.icom.museum

Regards from 
Daniel Winfree Papuga 
ICME President 
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http://icme.icom.museum


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