Giuditta Giardini

Squaring the Triangle of Cultural Property Law. Seventy Years of UNIDROIT’s Work

A lot has been written about the “Eternal Triangle of Cultural Property Law”, the sale of a cultural object by a non-owner, and the innovative provisions of Article 4 of the 1995 UNIDROIT Convention on Stolen or Illegally Exported Cultural Objects. This article aims to demonstrate how almost 70 years of UNIDROIT’s work in the field have shaped the principles regulating a non domino sales of stolen cultural objects. The article focuses on the work conducted by UNIDROIT; from the drafting of the Hague Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict and the draft Convention providing a Uniform Law on the Acquisition in Good Faith of Corporeal Movables to the adoption of the 1995 UNIDROIT Convention; and examines its impact on domestic legislation and case law.

Regulation (EU) 2019/880 of the European Parliament and of the Council assigned implementing powers to the European Commission to adopt uniform provisions for effectively enforcing new rules on the import of cultural goods. The present commentary navigates the text of the Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) 2021/1079 of 24 June 2021 (“Implementing Regulation”), adopted to ensure the uniform implementation of the said import legislation by the Member States. The text of the Committee’s instrument sets up exemptions from the documentation requirements for certain categories of goods; contains detailed provisions on import licenses and statements; and establishes rules for the electronic system for the import of cultural goods. The ambitious provisions of the Implementing Regulation raise some important questions, e.g. whether the electronic system will facilitate the work of custom agents or engulf it; or whether national export offices and legislative bodies will step up to the challenge and quickly adapt to the new system and new rules.

Taking up the appeal of lenders around the world, this article shows that there is an opportunity to internationally and uniformly regulate art-financing. The research contributes to the debate by presenting recent evolutions of the art-financing industry from both the financial and legal perspectives. The article provides an overview of the art-secured lending market, focusing firstly on financial issues that hinder the practice and the proposed solutions to them; and secondly on legal issues. Despite the financial difficulties faced by service providers, including determining the estimated return of a work of art after two years from the issuance of the loan, scholars and market players have successfully teamed up to solve some urgent financial issues. Departing from recent literature that analyses art-financing exclusively from a financial standpoint, this paper also considers art-financing from a legal perspective, presenting two case studies and two different legal systems. The jurisprudence of both U.S. and selected European courts on point is employed to highlight the advantages and drawbacks of art-secured lending. Finally, the article advocates the creation of an international register of collateralized art goods to encourage international secured transactions involving art works.