Legal issues and recovering processes: Australia

Paper presented at the Art Crime Protecting Art, Protecting Artists and Protecting Consumers Conference.

I have not been able to resist the temptation to commence today with six words. ‘This is a world of limitations.’ One reason for the start is prosaic. I am considering something about limitation periods and their role in the recovery of stolen art. As you would imagine, ‘Legal Issues and Recovery Processes: Australia’ is large topic. So I have chosen one aspect about recovery to consider in the Australian context: limitation periods. To do this, some international comparison is useful. Art theft commonly crosses jurisdictions; it often is international.