The return of cultural objects in the european internal market: the duty of cooperation and the use of ICT

Abstract

The EU has specific legislation that regulates the export, the import, and the restitution of cultural goods within the internal market. This legislation includes the principles of the main international conventions referring the protection and restitution of cultural heritage. The approval and entry into force of the Directive 2014/60/EU on the return of cultural objects unlawfully removed from the territory of a Member State should also have entailed the adoption of cooperation mechanisms to develop a unified system for the return of cultural objects between the Member States, with the help of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) and, especially, the Internal Market Information System (IMI). The legal-administrative regime designed to facilitate and unify the return of unlawfully exported or imported cultural objects within the internal market constitutes an initial step, still with remarkable deficiencies, such as the lack of harmonization of key concepts like cultural goods, archaeological object, the country of origin of the objects and the country of departure, which makes this cooperation difficult, as evidenced by the Commission’s First Report to improve the traceability and restitution of cultural goods unlawfully exported from the European internal market.