Paris, 10 September {No. 96-156}- UNESCO's Division of Cultural Heritage will hold the biennial meeting of its intergovernmental committee on the return of cultural property from 16 to 19 September at Headquarters.
Composed of 22 Member States, the Intergovernmental Committee for Promoting the Return of Cultural Property to its Countries of Origin or its Restitution in Case of Illicit Appropriation will notably discuss the legal arguments concerning Greece's claim that the Parthenon marbles, also known as the Elgin marbles, be returned to Greece from the British Museum.
Also to be examined is Turkey's claim for the return of the sphinx of Boguskoy from Berlin, and other continuing international negotiations on restitution of cultural property. Besides UNESCO Member States, the meeting will be attended by representatives of organizations interested in the fight against illicit traffic in cultural property such as Interpol, the Council of Europe, the International Institute for the Unification of Private Law, and the International Council of Museums.
Participants will be presented a new study commissioned by UNESCO on the trade in antiquities, as well as a series of recommendations on fighting illicit traffic in cultural goods made at regional seminars held in Bamako, Mali, and Cuenca, Ecuador. They will also be informed of the results of such initiatives as Cambodia's new "Heritage Police," which was created with UNESCO support and has already contributed to a substantial reduction in the number of thefts around the Angkor temple complex.
Other notable results of the UNESCO-led effort to combat illegal trade in cultural property include the return of a valuable Sakalava statuette to Madagascar, and of a Bété statuette to the National Museum of Abidjan, Côte d'Ivoire, both by French dealers. Also handed over have been a collection of 32 Mycenaean gold ornaments which disappeared from Greece in the 1970s and were exhibited for sale in a New York art gallery, and important documents of the Austrian city of Feldkirch, which had been held by Zurich for 620 years.
In implementing its 1970 Convention on the Means of Prohibiting and Preventing the Illicit Import, Export and Transfer of Ownership of Cultural Property, to which 85 states are parties, UNESCO holds workshops in various parts of the world, disseminates notices of stolen cultural items, and contributes to inventories and data bases of movable cultural property to help fast and accurate identification. It is currently considering the possibility of creating a fund to assist states in recuperating cultural objects found in other countries.