‘Regulating the Market in Illicit Antiquities’, Trends & Issues in Crime and Criminal Justice No. 239

For centuries antiquities have been bought and sold, often with little regard to their historic ownership. To some, cultural artefacts are regarded as the property of the state, while to others they belong to those who find them and may therefore be freely traded.

There are cultural “nationalists” who argue that relaxed export laws would result in an increased outflow of their heritage. They have little sympathy for collectors in market nations whom they accuse of having plundered their objects. Cultural “internationalists”, on the other hand, believe that antiquities belong wherever the market distributes them, and oppose retentionist attitudes displayed by some source states, suggesting that strong export controls foster black markets.

Given that there is a thriving trade in antiquities, an unknown proportion of which are stolen, this paper provides a brief analysis of the global systems of supply and demand that govern this trade, and the regulatory challenges that exist in this complex market.