Hi Henry:

You will find both the June 1995 UNIDROIT Convention on Stolen Cultural
Objects text, and an anonymous commentary from an oficial participant in
the 3 week Rome conference via my WWW home page:

    http://www.city.ac.uk/artspol/index.html


There is still a long way to go, as the Convention has to be ratified by
States and this is going to take a matter of years rather than months in
some cases. There is a big head of steam againsat it building up in the
USA and at least one top art trade lawyer is coming to London 14/15
November to speak against it at an international conference on stolen art
organised by the Lloyds of London insurance market, INTERPOL, Art Loss
Register etc.


Yrs.


Patrick Boylan

===================

On Fri, 29 Sep 1995, Henry Crawford wrote:

> >i am doing research about the conflict between wealthy, art/artifact
> >importing nations such as the US and poorer "source" nations such as
> >Turkey or Greece...anyway there is a new international convention open
> >for signatures that would require the return of items to the source
> >nation if the possessor such as a museum or collector could not
> >adequately prove the object isnt stolen or illegally exported...however,
> >if the possessor acquired the item in good faith, compensation will be
> >paid...what i would like is for anyone with significant information about
> >this convention (unidroit) to either tell me or let me know what the
> >source is...in addition, since the convention is sponsered by the United
> >Nations i would like to get an email address for someone involved in
> >UNESCO or the International Council of Museums...finally, the source
> >nations are basing the repatriation argument somewhat on human rights
> >law, if anyone knows of a good source demonstrating this, i would really
> >appreciate being notified about it...sorry for so many requests but the
> >subject is so full of conflict i need to find out as many aspects as
> >possible...thanks for any help
>
>
> "B. Bengs":
> Please identify yourself.   Who are you and where are you.  Sometimes a
> phone call or a letter are better response tools that Email.
>
> Henry B. Crawford
>
> Curator of History
> Museum of Texas Tech University
> Box 43191
> Lubbock, TX  79409-3191
> 806/742-2442
> FAX 742-1136
> [log in to unmask]
>