Background Paper for participants in the Second Meeting of States Parties to the 1970 Convention
I cannot resist beginning this study without repeating what I said in the introduction to my 2000 article in the UNIDROIT house journal Uniform Law Review. In the paper titled: “The Recovery of Cultural Objects by African States through the UNESCO and UNIDROIT Conventions and the Role of Arbitration”, I lamented that:
The majority of African countries that could benefit by becoming States Parties to the 1970 UNESCO Convention on the Means of Prohibiting and Preventing the Illicit Import, Export and Transfer of Ownership of Cultural Property are not States Parties. Since the Convention came into force on 24 April 1972, there have been only twenty African States Parties. … the UNIDROIT Convention on Stolen or Illegally Exported Cultural Objects …1995 … entered into force on 1July 1998 … Not a single African country is a State Party, although Burkina Faso, Cote d’Ivoire, Guinea, Senegal and Zambia are signatories to the Convention.
Today, twelve years on, twenty seven African countries are now members of the 1970 Convention, while just two (Gabon and Nigeria) have joined the 1995 Convention. The African representation is therefore 50% and 4% respectively. The twenty seven countries who are members are: Algeria, Angola, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Chad, Cote d’Ivoire, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Egypt, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, Guinea, Libya, Madagascar, Mali, Mauritania, Mauritius, Morocco, Niger, Nigeria, Rwanda, Senegal, South Africa, Tunisia, United Republic of Tanzania, Zambia and Zimbabwe. Notable among the countries that are not States Parties are Ethiopia, Ghana and Kenya. Geographically, all five North African countries are States Parties. West Africa has a good representation,
while Southern Africa is poorly represented. Linguistically, Francophone countries are better represented than Anglophone ones. The country survey - snapshots - that follows focuses first on States Parties before looking at the inadvertent efforts of non member countries.
