Expert evidence submitted by heritage law expert Dr Sophie Vigneron was published in the Cultural Property (Armed Conflicts) Bill ahead of the completion of its Public Bill Committee stage last week.
The Bill, introduced to Parliament by the Government on 19 May 2016, aims to enable the UK to ratify the 1954 Hague Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict and accede to its two Protocols. The Convention entered into force in 1956 and has now been ratified by 127 states. The UK signed the Convention in December 1954 and has been publicly committed to ratifying it since 2004.
Dr Vigneron, the author of several articles on the protection of cultural heritage at a national and international level and of a book on the regulation of auctions in France and in England, submitted written comments on clauses 16, 17 and 21 of the Bill.
Within clause 16, Dr Vigneron commented upon the definition of unlawfully exported cultural property and urged inclusion of reference to the 1954 UNESCO Convention. She fully supported comments submitted by Professor Ulph on Clause 17 regarding the mental test (mens rea) where it is argued that a subjective test of ‘knowing or suspecting’ would be best to deter secrecy in the art market.
Commenting on a reference to ‘good faith and without knowledge’ in Clause 21, Dr Vigneron said it was “not conducive of a higher standard of care by buyers or traders in the art world.” She went on to say: ‘It encourages prospective buyers to refrain from asking questions so that they do not know that the items were unlawfully removed. It does not embolden buyers to ask simple questions such as ‘Where does the object come from? When was the object imported into the United Kingdom? Does the object have a valid export licence?’ Practices such as gentlemen’s agreements, unwritten contracts, secret prices and anonymous parties should not be the norm.’
Dr Vigneron has a particular interest in the regulation of the art market and cultural heritage law. Her research on cultural heritage law covers both the regulation and protection of cultural objects and the built heritage by national laws (French, English and the USA) and international conventions. Her earlier work focused on the regulation of cultural objects and the restitution of stolen and/or illegally exported cultural objects, in particular in the case of historic wrong (human remains, Nazi era looted objects).
Dr Vigneron is a member of the Institute of Art and Law, and the Société internationale pour la recherche sur le droit du patrimoine culturel.
She was invited as an observer to the Meeting of 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 in 2012 and was invited to the Workshop on Illicit Traffic organised in Beirut by EUROMED HERITAGE 4 in 2009. Since 2014, she has also acted as a consultant for the Council of Europe.
You can watch Dr Vigneron talking about cultural heritage law in her TED style ‘Think Kent’ lecture on YouTube.