Background paper for participants in the Second Meeting of States Parties to the 1970 Convention, Second Edition.
In 1960 the United Nations General Assembly adopted the Declaration on the Granting of Independence to Colonial Countries and Peoples (UNGA 1514 (XV)). During the following decades the newly independent States were anxious to recover important items from their cultural heritage, many of which were to be found in the museums of the former colonizing States. They were also very concerned at the continuing loss of cultural heritage due to exploitation by looters at a time when they had relatively few resources to control it. Much of the early debate associated these two issues, but the major market and collecting States were reluctant to return cultural objects received in the past and now in their museums and private collections. They were, however, prepared to do something to stop the contemporary losses complained of by mainly developing States.
