TY - JOUR
TI - Austria Approaches Its Colonial Past: Prospects of a New Restitution Law for Cultural Objects
AU - Spitra, Sebastian M.
TI - Austria Approaches Its Colonial Past: Prospects of a New Restitution Law for Cultural Objects
AB - 
	In January 2022 theAustrian government established an expert committee to study the colonial heritage in its federal museums. Although Austria is a country not considered to have an extensive colonial past, Austrian museums hold large collections of ethnographic objects and human remains that they acquired during the heydays of colonialism. This country report introduces the current restitution debate in Austria through a legal lens. It discusses the legal situation of cultural objects from colonial contexts and the instruments available to museums and the federal government to organize restitutions and formulate rules. From a comparative law perspective, the specific history of Austria might turn the currently-evolving Austrian approach into an interesting example for other countries with public holdings of cultural objects from colonial contexts but without a history of direct colonialism.
VL - 2022
IS - 2/2022 (8)
PY - 2022
SN - 2391-7997
C1 - 2450-050X
SP - 307
EP - 322
DO - 10.4467/2450050XSNR.22.021.17034
UR - https://ejournals.eu/czasopismo/saaclr/artykul/austria-approaches-its-colonial-past-prospects-of-a-new-restitution-law-for-cultural-objects
KW - restitution
KW - colonialism
KW - cultural property
KW - cultural objects
KW - cultural heritage
KW - Austria