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The past, present: The Parthenon Sculptures dispute as an example of the ICPRCP’s role on claims barred by the non-retroactivity of the 1970 UNESCO Convention

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 March 2022

Letícia Machado HaertelOpen the ORCID record for Letícia Machado Haertel[Opens in a new window]
Letícia Machado Haertel*
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Social Sciences School, Getúlio Vargas Foundation, Brazil
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Email: lehaertel@gmail.com
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Abstract

This article analyzes the role played by the Intergovernmental Committee for Promoting the Return of Cultural Property to Its Countries of Origin or Its Restitution in Case of Illicit Appropriation (ICPRCP) in promoting the settlement of disputes barred by the non-retroactivity of the 1970 UNESCO Convention through an assessment of its impact on the dispute between Greece and the United Kingdom over the Parthenon Sculptures. The analysis first focuses on the ICPRCP’s regular mandate, followed by an evaluation of some “collateral effects” that it might have had on the dispute. Through the examination of all reports, recommendations, and decisions issued by the ICPRCP and the performance of a wider interdisciplinary case study, it is argued that the ICPRCP has had an impact on the dispute, both directly and indirectly. The value of these conclusions is to shed light on the complex factors in interplay in voluntary and non-binding dispute settlement mechanisms such as the ones performed by the ICPRCP and to represent a framework for further studies on the ICPRCP’s work and alternative dispute resolution methods in general.

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International Journal of Cultural Property , Volume 28 , Issue 4 , November 2021, pp. 479 - 504
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© The Author(s), 2022. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of the International Cultural Property Society

Introduction

The year 2020 marked the fiftieth anniversary of the 1970 UNESCO Convention on the Means of Prohibiting and Preventing the Illicit Import, Export and Transfer of Ownership of Cultural Property (1970 UNESCO Convention).Footnote 1 Not less remarkable are the 43 years since the establishment of the Intergovernmental Committee for Promoting the Return of Cultural Property to Its Countries of Origin or Its Restitution in Case of Illicit Appropriation (ICPRCP), a permanent intergovernmental body entrusted with the mandate of assisting the member states of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) in dealing with cases falling outside the scope of the existing conventions on the restitution of cultural property, filling the gap generated by the non-retroactivity of the 1970 UNESCO Convention.

Since its inception, the ICPRCP has been seized to promote the settlement of 10 disputes, with its longest-standing case still pending: the dispute between Greece and the United Kingdom surrounding the Parthenon Sculptures. The Parthenon was dismembered by a British ambassador between 1801 and 1803, and his collection was purchased by the UK government and donated to the British Museum in 1816, where they stand until today. Greece has been pursuing their return since its independence in 1833, which is considered the longest and most eminent (and, for some, the most compelling)Footnote 2 claim of restitution of cultural property.Footnote 3

The ICPRCP’s effectiveness as a forum for the settlement of disputes on the restitution of cultural propertyFootnote 4 has been challenged by both states and scholars,Footnote 5 and the fact that the Parthenon Sculptures have been standing before it since 1984 without any prospect of final settlement seems to support this negative appraisal. Nonetheless, this article is established under the premise that alternative dispute resolution (ADR) methodsFootnote 6 cannot be properly evaluated if one merely considers its final result – the procedure and the bilateral engagements they entail might have a significant impact on an international dispute, notwithstanding a failure to achieve its utmost goal.Footnote 7

This article is inserted in this scenario and aims at assessing the role played by the ICPRCP in promoting the settlement of disputes over the restitution of cultural property through an analysis of the Parthenon Sculptures dispute. This case study is performed through a systematic review of all procedures undertaken under the ICPRCP’s scope concerning the Parthenon Sculptures dispute, including an analysis of all reports, recommendations, and decisions issued on the topic.Footnote 8 It also involved an interdisciplinary study of the history of the dispute over the Parthenon Sculptures.

The article begins with a short introduction to the work of the ICPRCP and a brief overview of the facts of the dispute over the Parthenon Sculptures in order to set the following analysis into the wider context of the UNESCO framework and the almost two centuries of Greek requests for restitution. The assessment of the ICPRCP’s participation in the dispute will be divided between the analysis of its performance of the functions present on its mandate and the evaluation of some “collateral effects” of these procedures. In the end, conclusions are drawn as to the impact the ICPRCP might have had on the dispute.

The ICPRCP as a means to fill the 1970 UNESCO Convention’s gaps

The 1970 UNESCO Convention and its non-retroactivity

The illicit and clandestine removal and traffic of cultural objects have always been one of the most serious threats to cultural property and heritage worldwide.Footnote 9 In pursuit of its constitutional mandate on cultural matters,Footnote 10 UNESCO appointed a Committee of Experts in 1964 to discuss the issue and, in 1968, adopted a resolution authorizing the drafting of a convention.Footnote 11 After a series of reviews, the final draft emerged in April 1970 as the 1970 Convention on the Means of Prohibiting and Preventing the Illicit Import, Export and Transfer of Ownership of Cultural Property, adopted by UNESCO’s sixteenth General Conference (UNESCO-GC) on 14 November 1970.Footnote 12

The 1970 UNESCO Convention establishes a system of international cooperation to prevent and reduce theft and illicit transfer of cultural objects.Footnote 13 Remarkably, its Article 7(b)(ii) provides an obligation to return cultural property illegally exported upon request of the state of origin. Nonetheless, due to the strong clashing of interests between the so-called “market nations” and “source nations”Footnote 14 during the Convention’s drafting,Footnote 15 many compromises had to be achieved,Footnote 16 one of them being that none of its provisions apply retroactively.Footnote 17

The non-retroactivity of the 1970 UNESCO Convention was opposed by states historically deprived of their heritage, which claimed that it would have no effectivity as all major objects of cultural significance were already kept abroad.Footnote 18 The same weakness is reflected in other binding instruments dealing with the restitution of cultural property.Footnote 19 This has been a major hindrance in discussing the restitution of objects removed from their places of origin a long time ago.Footnote 20

The ICPRCP’s inception

After the 1970 UNESCO Convention entered into force, the importance of having a mechanism to handle cases that originated prior to it continued to be discussed. In 1973, the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) passed the first of a series of resolutions on the “restitution of works of art to countries victims of expropriation” – Resolution 3187 (XXVIII)Footnote 21 – which acknowledged that expropriation occurred “frequently as a result of colonial or foreign occupation” and expressed “that restitution of such works would make good the serious damage suffered by countries as a result of such removal.”

In 1975, Resolution 3391 (XXX) reiterated the previous resolution and added an operative paragraph that “[c]all[ed] upon those states concerned which have not already done so, to proceed to the restitution of objets d’art, monuments, museum pieces, manuscripts and documents to their countries of origin, such restitution being calculated to strengthen international understanding and co-operation.”Footnote 22 This resolution also referred to a Committee of Experts that was to study the question in the following year in a meeting organized by UNESCO.Footnote 23 The committee met in Venice in 1976 and discussed, inter alia, how to deal with the cases of displaced cultural heritage that fall outside of the 1970 UNESCO Convention’s scope.Footnote 24 On this issue, the Committee of Experts called upon the director-general of UNESCO (UNESCO-DG) to promote the creation of an international body charged with the task of facilitating bilateral negotiations for the resolution of disputes concerning displaced cultural objects.Footnote 25 Thus, the UNESCO-GC approved, at its twentieth session in 1978, the creation of the ICPRCP.Footnote 26

The work of the ICPRCP

The ICPRCP is a permanent intergovernmental body entrusted with the mandate of assisting UNESCO member states in dealing with cases falling outside the scope of the existing conventions on the restitution of cultural property,Footnote 27 aiming at filling the gap created by non-retroactivity.Footnote 28 To enable it to do so, Article 3(2) of the ICPRCP’s statute provides that a return request can be made for “any cultural property which has a fundamental significance from the point of view of the spiritual values and cultural heritage of the people of a Member State or Associate Member of UNESCO and which has been lost as a result of colonial or foreign occupation or as a result of illicit appropriation.”

Nevertheless, the ICPRCP’s ability to address cases without temporal restraints was balanced by its lack of jurisdictional power to rule in disputes between states, acting in a merely advisory capacity by offering a framework for discussion and bilateral negotiations.Footnote 29 In 2005, the ICPRCP’s mandate was strengthened and amended so as to include the power to make proposals for mediation or conciliation to the states that have submitted a dispute to it.Footnote 30 However, participation in such processes is voluntary, and their outcome is not binding.Footnote 31

The ICPRCP acknowledged this limitation but defended the new mediation and conciliation procedures on the grounds that they would offer a wider number of options to the member states to settle disputes over the restitution of cultural heritage.Footnote 32 In the ICPRCP’s fifteenth session in 2009, mediation and conciliation were highlighted as an excellent way of strengthening the ICPRCP, allowing disputes to be settled quickly.Footnote 33 In the sixteenth session in 2010, the Rules of Procedure for Mediation and Conciliation were finally published.Footnote 34 Since its inception, the ICPRCP has been called upon to promote the settlement of 10 cases,Footnote 35 but with no mediation or conciliation procedure being successfully instituted yet.Footnote 36

The history of the Parthenon Sculptures dispute

The extraction and transfer of the Parthenon Sculptures to the United Kingdom

The Parthenon was constructed between 447 bc and 432 bc.Footnote 37 Around the building, there were 92 large sculptures (the metopes) and, above them, an astonishing frieze was spread over 114 rectangular blocks, with its characters – 378 citizens and 245 animals – carefully carved from the marble.Footnote 38 The monument stood mostly intact in the Athenian Acropolis for more than 2,000 years,Footnote 39 until Thomas Bruce, the seventh Lord of Elgin, was appointed as the United Kingdom’s ambassador to the Ottoman Empire, which had been ruling over Greece since 1458.Footnote 40 Eager to decorate his new mansion in Scotland in a classic Greek style,Footnote 41 he sent a team to sketch and take plaster casts of the Parthenon Sculptures and bring the drawings and molds to his mansion.Footnote 42 Elgin’s team arrived in Athens in 1800 and faced difficulties in accessing the Acropolis.Footnote 43

In order to facilitate his team’s work, Elgin seems to have obtained, mostly due to the prestige the United Kingdom had with the Ottoman authorities, permission from the central government in 1801 to work in the Acropolis.Footnote 44 The privileges that the document had granted them, alongside the lavish bribes regularly paid to the local authorities, led Elgin’s men to consider the possibility of removing the sculptures attached to the Parthenon.Footnote 45 This resulted in 1,803 pieces of marble, amongst them 56 of the 97 panels of the frieze and the 15 best-preserved metopes, being chiseled or sawn by Elgin’s workmen and shipped to London between 1801 and 1803, with a last shipment being sent to the United Kingdom in 1810.Footnote 46 Elgin faced severe financial difficulties upon his return to the United Kingdom.Footnote 47 In 1816, he petitioned the UK House of Commons, expressing his will to sell his collection of Greek sculptures.Footnote 48 Parliament decided to purchase the sculptures and organize their subsequent transfer to the British Museum,Footnote 49 where they have stood until today.

Greece’s requests for restitution

The first request by Greece to retrieve the Parthenon Sculptures was made in 1833 in the wake of its independence from the Ottoman Empire.Footnote 50 Since then, there has been a myriad of official and unofficial requests for return,Footnote 51 almost uninterruptedly,Footnote 52 with all of them being rejected. In this scenario, the efforts by Greece’s then culture minister, Melina Mercouri, warrant special regard – achieving, inter alia, the adoption of Recommendation no. 55 at the 1982 World Conference on Cultural Policies, which stated:

Considering that the removal of the so-called Elgin sculptures from their place in the Parthenon has disfigured a unique monument which is a symbol of eternal significance for the Greek people and for the whole world, … Considering it right and just that those sculptures should be returned to Greece, the country in which they were created, for reincorporation in the architectural structure of which they formed part,

1. Recommends that Member States view the return of the Parthenon sculptures as an instance of the application of the principle that elements abstracted from national monuments should be returned to those monuments;

2. Recommends that the [UNESCO] Director-General give his full support to this action which comes properly under the heading of the safeguarding of the cultural heritage of mankind.Footnote 53

Within this context, the issue of the Parthenon Sculptures was raised before the ICPRCP at its third session in 1983 when the representative of Greece referred to its willingness to begin negotiation proceedings under the ICPRCP’s framework.Footnote 54 Ever since these proceedings were officially established in 1984, the parties in the dispute have convened in every one of its sessions, drafting a joint recommendation that, in general terms, always reiterates the parties’ positive spirit and willingness to continue negotiations.Footnote 55 In this sense, the ICPRCP has issued 17 recommendations on the Parthenon Sculptures dispute, an effort recalled by the ICPRCP at its most recent session.Footnote 56 The Secretariat, the UNESCO-DG, and, generally, UNESCO, have always reaffirmed their commitment to facilitate meetings between the parties and the pursuit of bilateral agreements, taking both sides into account. Greece was also the first state to submit a mediation request after the mediation and conciliation procedures were approved in 2005 – though this procedure did not take place due to its rejection by the United Kingdom. The relevant procedures before the ICPRCP will be detailed and assessed below.

Assessment of the ICPRCP’s exercise of its regular functions on the Parthenon Sculptures dispute

Pursuant to article 4 of its Statute, the ICPRCP shall be responsible, inter alia, for facilitating bilateral negotiations for the restitution of cultural property to countries of origin, promoting multilateral and bilateral cooperation with a view to the restitution of cultural property, promoting exchanges of cultural property, and, since 2005, promoting consensual mediation and conciliation procedures. The outcome and efficiency of these roles of the ICPRCP will be assessed below, in light of the dispute surrounding the Parthenon Sculptures. For each of the described functions, a summary of the relevant outcomes will be provided, followed by an assessment.

ICPRCP’s regular procedure concerning requests for restitution

Summary of the relevant outcomes

At the third session of the ICPRCP in 1983, Greece announced that it would make use of the standard procedure under article 4(1) of the ICPRCP’s Statute aiming at the return of the Parthenon Sculptures,Footnote 57 which it did on 24 September 1984. In order to begin such procedures, the requesting state must fill out its part of the standard form, a document formulated by the ICPRCP that requires information on the requested object to be provided by both states involved in a case. Greece’s request was forwarded to the UK representatives to UNESCO on 19 October 1984, who had to respond within one year.Footnote 58

Thus, at the fourth session of the ICPRCP in 1985, the Secretariat reported that it had received Greece’s request but that the United Kingdom had not yet responded.Footnote 59 On the last day before its deadline – 31 October 1985 – the United Kingdom denied Greece’s request for restitution, arguing that “the trustees of the British Museum were prohibited by law from disposing of these sculptures and returning them to their countries of origin.” This was announced in the ICPRCP’s fifth session in 1987.Footnote 60 The United Kingdom’s blank rejection of the request for restitution represented a dangerous stalemate for the recently established committee. Hence, the participants in the ICPRCP’s fifth session in 1987 presented suggestions on how the ICPRCP and UNESCO could continue to support the negotiations,Footnote 61 with many expressing hope that the committee and the UNESCO-DG would continue to take action to achieve progress.Footnote 62 Some states even seem to have suggested that the ICPRCP go beyond its mandate in order to ensure a significant development on the dispute, which led the chairperson to emphasize that the ICPRCP could not act as a court or an arbiter and that it was merely responsible “for seeking ways and means of facilitating bilateral negotiations for the restitution or return of cultural property.”Footnote 63 In the end, it was established that it was still incumbent on the ICPRCP to make sure that the negotiations on the Parthenon Sculptures dispute did not reach a deadlock and to continue to pursue a solution acceptable to both parties concerned.Footnote 64

Assessment

Greece’s attempt to pursue the restitution of the Parthenon Sculptures through the standard procedure under the ICPRCP was a brief episode in its long-standing request for restitution. Considering that this procedure consists of a request for restitution and not for negotiations concerning restitution and that it is exclusively based on the states’ willingness to restitute, it is not surprising that it ended so fast. It has been argued that this approach “did not have any constructive effect on the issue of return” of the sculptures.Footnote 65 Still, the beginning of Greece’s journey navigating its possibilities under the ICPRCP reveals important issues surrounding its standard procedures.

First, by filling out the standard form, Greece had the opportunity to provide UNESCO and the international community with updated and reliable information on the situation concerning the Parthenon Sculptures.Footnote 66 Although the complexity of the form is often criticized,Footnote 67 it might be an asset for states that have information available and wish to publicize it. In the specific case of the Parthenon Sculptures, Greece was provided the opportunity to submit to the international community its arguments on some of the most contentious points of the dispute – for instance, the sculptures’ ownership status (field A.3 of the form), their legal status (field A.5), and the circumstances of their removal (field A.9).

Second, even if it wishes to deny the request, a holding state – such as the United Kingdom, in this case – must fill out its part of the form and answer the same questions posed to the requesting country.Footnote 68 This is an interesting means of demanding information from the holding state, which may otherwise be unwilling to provide it. Concerning the Parthenon Sculptures, it is worth noticing that the United Kingdom left the field on their conservation (field A.6)Footnote 69 blank.Footnote 70 Even after the United Kingdom had already denied engaging in the bilateral procedures, the UNESCO-DG asked it to fill in those fields following a request from Greece.Footnote 71

Third, the fact that many members of the ICPRCP seemed frustrated with the quick negative outcome of the procedure and proposed ways of supporting Greece’s request for restitution generated a promising scenario for Greece’s further pursuits under the ICPRCP’s framework. The fact that the United Kingdom responded on the last possible day also impacted the member states’ opinion on its commitment to the work of the ICPRCP.

The promotion of bilateral negotiation and cooperation under the ICPRCP’s auspices

Summary of the relevant outcomes

As above, faced with the risk of a deadlock, the ICPRCP established, at its fifth session in 1987, that it had to pursue other forms of furthering the negotiations on the Parthenon Sculptures dispute to achieve a solution acceptable to both parties concerned.Footnote 72 In the years following, the ICPRCP has attempted to promote bilateral cooperation in many different forms. Some notable instances will be detailed below.

At the ICPRCP’s sixth session in 1989, the Secretariat informed all participants that a mission to London had been undertaken in June 1987 by the then chairperson of the committee to promote bilateral discussions on the issue of the Parthenon Sculptures.Footnote 73 At the seventh session in 1991,Footnote 74 which was held in Athens as well as at the eighth session in 1994Footnote 75 and the ninth session in 1996,Footnote 76 not many instances of bilateral talks and developments were reported. Still, the Secretariat and the UNESCO-DG continued to be generally called upon to employ their good offices to reach a bilateral agreement.

At the eleventh session in 2001, the Secretariat reported that the UNESCO-DG took fresh initiatives to encourage bilateral negotiations between Greece and the United Kingdom and that two meetings had been held between the parties.Footnote 77 The first was a seminar in Washington, DC, in June 1999, which was entitled “The Parthenon Marbles, Their History and Destiny” and was attended by the chairperson of the tenth session, who presented a summary of UNESCO’s action on the Parthenon Sculptures dispute. The second was a meeting in Athens in May 2000 on historical, cultural, and legal aspects of restitution of the Parthenon Sculptures, where most participants had spoken in favor of restitution. Further, a recommendation was issued for the United Kingdom and Greece to hold a meeting on a pre-specified and agreed-upon agenda.Footnote 78

During the ICPRCP’s twelfth session in 2003, the Secretariat explained that the meeting that had been recommended in 2001 did not take place, despite UNESCO’s efforts to reschedule it, for two reasons.Footnote 79 First, the United Kingdom preferred to postpone the meeting until the new chairperson of the British Museum’s Board of Trustees and the new director took their posts. Second, the meeting was hindered because Greece wanted to include the return of all the sculptures in the pre-specified agenda, and the United Kingdom was not in agreement with this proposition.Footnote 80 The Secretariat further notified the ICPRCP that a UNESCO representative attended a meeting in March 2003 with representatives from the UK Department for Culture, Media and Sport and from the Greek Ministry of Culture.Footnote 81 Finally, the UNESCO-DG was invited to assist in facilitating a meeting between the parties to discuss Greece’s proposal to have the sculptures exhibited together in the New Acropolis Museum simultaneously with the 2004 Olympic games in Athens.Footnote 82

At the thirteenth session in 2005, the Secretariat reported that the UNESCO-DG renewed efforts to hold a meeting between Greece and the United Kingdom.Footnote 83 In this context, a meeting took place on 4 December 2003 in London, following the recommendation of the twelfth session.Footnote 84 Another meeting between the parties had been held in 2005.Footnote 85 Both parties reported an increase in the number of bilateral talks outside of UNESCO’s framework.Footnote 86 While this increase was welcomed by Greece as a complement to the efforts under UNESCO’s scope, the United Kingdom suggested that bilateral negotiations should continue independently of UNESCO – according to it, “the subject [of the Parthenon Sculptures] does not have to be discussed every two years.”Footnote 87 The recommendation issued by the ICPRCP repeated the regular formulation on the role of the Secretariat and the UNESCO-DG on the facilitation of meetings, but it added that this should be done “with a view to resolving the issue of the Parthenon Sculptures, taking into account at the same time the sensitivities of both sides.”Footnote 88

In the fourteenth session in 2007, the Secretariat informed the ICPRCP that the UNESCO-DG had further encouraged the holding of meetings following the previous recommendations.Footnote 89 In this context, a meeting between the representatives from Greece, the United Kingdom, and the British Museum, alongside two UNESCO observers, had been held in London on 4 May 2007.Footnote 90 The ICPRCP stated in its resolution that this represented the development of a “solid and cordial basis for discussions” and that the promotion of bilateral meetings by the UNESCO-DG had “led to the development of valuable relationships.”Footnote 91

At the fifteenth session in 2009, which celebrated the 30 years since the ICPRCP’s inception, the Secretariat reported that the UNESCO-DG had continued to encourage the holding of meetings between the parties.Footnote 92 For instance, the Secretariat had attended a meeting between the representatives of the United Kingdom and Greece on 23 April 2009 in London.Footnote 93 Another meeting was held in May 2009 during the ICPRCP’s session.Footnote 94

At the sixteenth session in 2010, the Secretariat reported that, despite its encouragement and the professional contacts maintained between the two countries concerned, no official meetings had taken place in the last 10 months.Footnote 95 Nonetheless, the recommendation issued by the ICPRCP “acknowledge[d] the fruitful cooperation between Greece and the UK on cultural matters.”Footnote 96

At the seventeenth session in 2011, the Secretariat reported to have continued to encourage the holding of meetings between Greece and the United Kingdom, but none were reported.Footnote 97 The recommendation repeated the acknowledgment of “fruitful cooperation” between the parties.Footnote 98 The same happened at the eighteenth session in 2012.Footnote 99

The nineteenth session in 2014 marked the beginning of mediation procedures,Footnote 100 which were the focus of the reports until their rejection by the United Kingdom was announced at the twentieth session in 2016.Footnote 101 After the deadlock on mediation procedures, a resolution was issued that still expressed the wish that the cooperation between Greece and the United Kingdom would continue with the view to concluding the ongoing discussions with respect to the Parthenon Sculptures, and it called upon both states to intensify their efforts.Footnote 102 No significant inter-state developments were reported at the twenty-first session in 2018.Footnote 103

At the twenty-second session of the ICPRCP in 2021, the Secretariat reported that he had sent two letters in 2020 to the United Kingdom and Greece to obtain information and facilitate dialogue.Footnote 104 The ICPRCP took note that the United Kingdom had rejected an invitation by Greece to a bilateral expert meeting in AthensFootnote 105 and invited the concerned parties to “continue making all necessary efforts in order to find an equally acceptable solution.”Footnote 106 The committee also decided to express “its deep concern that the issue still remains pending” and “its disappointment that its respective recommendations have not been observed by the United Kingdom,” calling on the United Kingdom to “reconsider its stand and proceed to a bone fide dialogue with Greece on the matter.”Footnote 107

Assessment

As seen above, after the United Kingdom denied Greece’s request for engaging in the standard procedure for restitution, there was widespread support amongst the members of the ICPRCP for the continuing of bilateral negotiations. The history of bilateral talks under the ICPRCP’s scope demonstrates that the committee, alongside its Secretariat and the UNESCO-DG, did indeed seek ways to facilitate bilateral negotiations, which can be seen in their support of, and participation in, the international conferences, meetings, and bilateral talks during and between the ICPRCP meetings reported above. Even though negotiation procedures are the means more frequently used for the settlement of disputes in the realm of cultural property,Footnote 108 scholarship frequently meets difficulties in properly assessing them due to the diverse political, legal, social, cultural, and many other aspects that they entail.Footnote 109 In this case, it is also difficult to determine whether a specific bilateral negotiation occurred because the ICPRCP intervened (in other words, if it would have occurred had the committee not intervened).

Nonetheless, some conclusions may be drawn. If one evaluates the bilateral negotiations purely in light of Greece’s declared goal of achieving restitution of the Parthenon Sculptures, no bilateral talks have led to advances on this matter so far.Footnote 110 This lack of closure cannot be attributed to the ICPRCP since the nature of its procedures is voluntary and highly dependent on collaboration by the states, and the United Kingdom has not significantly engaged with the ICPRCP’s efforts. Its lack of engagement is evident, for instance, from the fact that it refused even to consider the possibility of having the restitution of the sculptures added to a pre-defined agenda for a meeting with Greece,Footnote 111 attempted to exclude the issue from the ICPRCP’s discussions,Footnote 112 and did not observe the ICPRCP’s recommendations.Footnote 113

Admittedly, almost all of the resolutions on the Parthenon Sculptures dispute (at least until 2021) employed positive expressions to describe the negotiation procedures, such as “fruitful cooperation,” “progress,” and the “development of valuable relationships.” Nevertheless, one must be reminded that the recommendations are drafted by the parties together and sometimes reflect a very different scenario than what has been reported by the parties and the Secretariat. Further, the committee’s latest decisions on the matter adopted a more critical stance regarding this state of affairs.Footnote 114

Exchanges of cultural property under the ICPRCP’s auspices

Summary of the relevant outcomes

Another important function of the ICPRCP enshrined in Article 4(1) of its Statute is promoting exchanges of cultural property. Nonetheless, there has been no exchange of the Parthenon Sculptures between Greece and the United Kingdom, despite the occurrence of some opportunities. The Athens Olympic games, which were held in 2004, for instance, were a remarkable opportunity for cultural exchange. At the ICPRCP’s twelfth session in 2003, Greece proposed to organize, with the cooperation of the British Museum, a grand exhibition of the Parthenon Sculptures in their entirety in the New Acropolis Museum celebrating the Olympic games.Footnote 115 In response, the British Museum and United Kingdom stated that the British Museum was still the best place to exhibit the sculptures and that they would consider other items that could be loaned to Greece during the Olympic games.

The matter emerged again at the fifteenth session in 2009, when the British Museum offered to loan some of the Parthenon Sculptures to Greece under the condition that it officially acknowledge the British Museum’s alleged ownership of the sculptures.Footnote 116 The Greek representatives could not agree to such conditions, but they reiterated their wish to see a definitive or temporary reunification of the sculptures in Athens.Footnote 117 The opening of the New Acropolis Museum in 2009 was another possible context for fruitful discussions on the exchange of cultural property between Greece and the United Kingdom – it was even seen as a game-changer for the ICPRCP itself.Footnote 118 Though there have been private exchanges between the British and Greek museums, none of them have concerned the sculptures, which are the object of the dispute.Footnote 119

At the ICPRCP’s twenty-first session in 2018, the Greek representatives urged the United Kingdom and the British Museum to review their position on the matter.Footnote 120 The British Museum’s trustees stated that they would only consider any request to loan any part of the collection provided that Greece acknowledge the British Museum’s alleged ownership over the sculptures, a position supported by the UK government.Footnote 121 Once again, Greece could not agree to such conditions.

Assessment

The loaning of the Parthenon Sculptures held by the British Museum is, at least in theory, a possibility. According to the United Kingdom, the British Museum is an independent institution that can decide in favor of or against loaning agreements in a manner with which the United Kingdom is not able to interfere.Footnote 122 In fact, at the twentieth session of the ICPRCP in 2012, the United Kingdom cited the controversialFootnote 123 loan of one of the sculptures to the Hermitage Museum in Russia in order to demonstrate that they do not oppose loaning the sculptures for expositions worldwide.Footnote 124 Still, as noted above, there have been no instances of exchanges of the Parthenon Sculptures between Greece and the United Kingdom.

Such lack of progress derives from a clear deadlock: the United Kingdom and the British Museum have consistently stated that any loans of any of the Parthenon Sculptures to Greece are conditioned on its full recognition of the British Museum’s alleged ownership title over them, a condition with which Greece is unable to agree.Footnote 125 This demonstrates that the issue of determining whether the British Museum has acquired ownership over the sculptures is central to the dispute. Considering this deadlock, the ICPRCP’s limited mandate, and the lack of rules of procedures for “promoting exchanges of cultural property” (one of the ICPRCP’s responsibilities pursuant to Article 4 of its Statute), there are not many prospects for a positive change in this situation in the near future.

The new mediation procedure under the ICPRCP’s scope

Summary of the relevant outcomes

As above, the ICPRCP’s mandate was expanded in 2005 to include a voluntary and non-binding mediation and conciliation procedure. In 2013, the Greek government asked the UNESCO-DG to invite the United Kingdom to take part in a mediation procedure in an effort to break the deadlock in the bilateral talks.Footnote 126 Accordingly, the assistant director-general (UNESCO-ADG) sent a letter to the UK representatives and the British Museum’s director on 9 August 2013, informing them of Greece’s willingness to enter a mediation procedure under the ICPRCP’s auspices to reach an amicable solution to the dispute concerning the Parthenon Sculptures. Pursuant to Article 4(1) of the ICPRCP’s Statute, the United Kingdom’s agreement was a precondition for the procedure to begin.

At the ICPRCP’s nineteenth session in 2014, the Secretariat reported Greece’s request for mediation to the whole committee.Footnote 127 When asked by Switzerland if the United Kingdom had yet to provide a response, the Secretariat answered negatively. Faced with this scenario, Cyprus suggested the establishment of a six-month time limit for replying to such requests. The issue of a state not responding to a UNESCO request for mediation had not been envisaged by the drafters of the rules.Footnote 128

In addition to Switzerland and Cyprus, Greece’s efforts for the reunification of the Parthenon Sculptures were explicitly welcomed by Ecuador, Egypt, Libya, Mexico, Nigeria, and Turkey.Footnote 129 Further, the presentation of the Greek claim was welcomed by the members with applause, while the British response was met with silence.Footnote 130 The final recommendation acknowledged Greece’s request that UNESCO would deploy its good offices to invite the United Kingdom to a mediation procedure and took note that the United Kingdom had not yet written back.Footnote 131 It also invited the parties to consider making use of the mediation process,Footnote 132 while noting that Greece has already done so.Footnote 133

On 26 March 2015, 19 months after the UNESCO-ADG forwarded Greece’s request, the UK government and the trustees of the British Museum informed UNESCO in separate letters that they had decided to decline the request.Footnote 134 The United Kingdom’s response began with an acknowledgment of UNESCO’s role in safeguarding cultural heritage and in providing a forum for the resolution of international disputes through the ICPRCP. It also emphasized that the issue has been the subject of much discussion over the years both within the committee and elsewhere, and while the United Kingdom is not formally a member of the ICPRCP, officials from the government and the British Museum have regularly attended and sought to assist the committee in its work. Specifically, on Greece’s request, the following answer was provided:

While we remain keen to cooperate with UNESCO in its work, the fact remains that the Parthenon sculptures in the British Museum were legally acquired by Lord Elgin under the laws pertaining at the time and the Trustees of the British Museum have had clear legal title to the sculptures since 1816. Neither the British Government nor the British Museum are aware of any new arguments to the contrary since 1985, when a formal Greek request for the return of the sculptures was turned down by the British Government. We have seen nothing to suggest that Greece’s purpose in seeking mediation on this issue is anything other than to achieve the permanent transfer of the Parthenon sculptures now in the British Museum to Greece and on terms that would deny the British Museum’s right of ownership either in law or as a practical reality. Given our equally clear position, this leads us to conclude that mediation would not carry this debate substantially forward. … Given the global nature of the collection held by the British Museum, the many millions of visitors who visit each year have the opportunity to understand the significance of the Parthenon sculptures in the context of world history and they can do so free of charge. While we understand the strength of contrary opinion, we think that this is something of incalculable international benefit. … Setting aside the differences relating to the Parthenon sculptures, we believe that there is scope for further co-operation and collaboration between the British Museum and the Acropolis Museum in the years ahead, and we hope that this path can be pursued.Footnote 135

The British Museum Trustees’ response, in its turn, begins with the affirmation that they had considered the request put forward by Greece on 19 March 2015. Then, they proceed to summarize their view:

After full and careful consideration, we have decided respectfully to decline this request. We believe that the more constructive way forward, on which we have already embarked, is to collaborate directly with other museums and cultural institutions, not just in Greece but across the world. The British Museum admires and supports the work of UNESCO, fully acknowledging the importance of its unique ability, as an intergovernmental agency, to address the serious issue of the threats to, and the destruction of, cultural heritage around the world. … The Museum would wish always to align itself with UNESCO’s purposes in the preservation and safeguarding of the world’s endangered cultural heritage. However, the surviving Parthenon Sculptures, carefully preserved in a number of European museums, clearly do not fall into this category. The British Museum, as you know, is not a government body, and the collections do not belong to the British Government. … the Trustees would want to develop existing good relations with colleagues and institutions in Greece, and to explore collaborative ventures, not on a government-to-government basis but directly between institutions. This is why we believe that UNESCO involvement is not the best way forward. Footnote 136

These letters were presented by Greece to the ICPRCP at its twentieth session in 2016, and the United Kingdom repeated the same arguments described in its letter.Footnote 137 Cyprus, Turkey, Egypt, Bolivia, and Argentina took the floor to explicitly support Greece and to urge the United Kingdom to engage in the mediation procedure.Footnote 138

At the ICPRCP’s twenty-first session in 2018, Greece had another opportunity to expose its position and denounce the United Kingdom’s refusal to engage in mediation as well as its ignoring of the recommendations by the ICPRCP and UNESCO.Footnote 139 When the floor was opened, wide support for Greece was once again expressed, this time by Turkey, Japan, Mexico, Korea, Zambia, Egypt, Argentina, Armenia, Iraq, Benin, China, and Cyprus. Austria as well as France were ambiguous in their remarks. Greece thanked all the delegations that spoke in favor of the return and reunification of the Parthenon Sculptures.Footnote 140 Considering that Turkey had asked what were the next steps to reach a mutually acceptable solution, since mediation was not an option, Greece replied that it would continue its fight to bring back the sculptures using all diplomatic means possible as well as other ADR mechanisms. The United Kingdom welcomed the continuing discussions both at the government and museum levels with its Greek counterparts. Finally, a general recommendation was issued on the Parthenon Sculptures, and, specifically on mediation, the ICPRCP issued a decision calling upon states to make more extensive use of the mediation and conciliation procedure in order to facilitate the resolution of cases under discussion before the committee.Footnote 141

Assessment

The Parthenon Sculptures case was the first one submitted under the new mediation and conciliation procedures. Considering that it was the sole case pending before the ICPRCP when submitted, the expectations that this centuries-old dispute, which had been occupying the ICPRCP’s agenda since 1984, would finally be settled were understandably high. The request for mediation presented by Greece offered a great opportunity for the United Kingdom to demonstrate its long-affirmed goodwill toward the resolution of this matter. This opportunity was especially interesting considering that mediation under the ICPRCP is a non-binding procedure, offering the United Kingdom and the British Museum an opportunity to present their arguments on the retention of the Parthenon Sculptures without risking a binding unfavorable result. It was also a low-risk chance to show respect toward the work of the ICPRCP, UNESCO, and the member states, which had been dedicating time and resources discussing the matter for decades.

Nonetheless, in hindsight, it seems clear that the United Kingdom and the British Museum initially did not intend to respond to the requestFootnote 142 or, at least, to take it seriously. This likely explains why they took more than one and a half years to write such a short response to UNESCO’s invitation, which consisted entirely of arguments previously held by the United Kingdom and the British Museum. The British Museum even admitted in its letter to have discussed the issue only on 19 March 2015, a mere seven days before sending their response (and an astounding 588 days after the request).Footnote 143 The significant pressure exerted by members of the ICPRCP in its nineteenth session in 2014 might have been decisive to force them to produce a response, albeit short and unsatisfactory.Footnote 144 This speaks positively about the ICPRCP’s role since the fact that the British Museum and the United Kingdom responded to the invitation to the mediation procedure arguably had an impact on the dispute.

The complete refusal by the United Kingdom to engage in mediation, which was exposed in the response, makes it harder for its representatives to continue expressing its goodwill toward Greece’s claim before the ICPRCP.Footnote 145 The statement that the United Kingdom would not even consider entering a procedure that has as its scope the restitution of the Parthenon Sculptures is incompatible with any will to achieve a compromise. Even worse, as stated by Irini Stamatoudi: “By rejecting the invitation, the UK makes apparent that the negotiations (under the auspices of UNESCO) during all these years (since 2001) have operated as a pretext rather than as a genuine effort towards the resolution of the matter.”Footnote 146

Further, the letters by the United Kingdom and the British Museum disclosed an arbitrarily restrictive view of UNESCO’s and the ICPRCP’s role and mandate. The British Museum emphasized their role in the preservation and safeguarding of cultural property, ignoring their important role in the restitution of cultural property. The British Museum also emphasized UNESCO’s role in safeguarding cultural property against threats of destruction and rejected the ICPRCP’s intervention on the grounds that the sculptures are not endangered, a criterion present nowhere in the ICPRCP’s Statute. It further restricted the ICPRCP’s role solely to inter-state disputes, which, combined with the British Museum and the United Kingdom’s constant effort to classify the dispute as an issue between museums, also excludes the case from the organizations’ scope.Footnote 147

Additionally, the ICPRCP provided a forum for states to express their condemnation of the United Kingdom’s delay in responding and, later, its rejection of the request. As demonstrated above, at its nineteenth session in 2014, at least eight countries explicitly supported Greece’s claim and pressured the United Kingdom to respond. At the twentieth session, five states explicitly condemned the United Kingdom’s attitude toward mediation, and this number increased to 12 states at the twenty-first session of the ICPRCP in 2018. This dissatisfaction was also echoed outside of the ICPRCP.Footnote 148 In addition, it is worth noticing that the ICPRCP decided in 2018 to call upon the states to make more extensive use of the mediation and conciliation procedure “in order to facilitate the resolution of cases of return and restitution of cultural property under discussion before the Committee.”Footnote 149 At that moment, the Parthenon Sculptures dispute was the only case under discussion before the committee, which seems like a message to the United Kingdom. With so many states speaking against the United Kingdom’s refusal to engage in mediation, it is easy to wonder what is meant by the “incalculable international benefit” of retention of the sculptures, which is mentioned in the letter.

Another benefit of this attempt to enter mediation procedures – this time, to the ICPRCP itself – was that the delay in the response by the United Kingdom and the British Museum led the participants at the ICPRCP’s nineteenth session to establish a six-month time limit for replying to requests for the mediation and conciliation procedure. This will contribute to the efficiency of the ICPRCP to handle new requests.

Assessment of the “collateral effects” of the proceedings before the ICPRCP on the Parthenon Sculptures dispute

As mentioned above, evaluating the role of ADR mechanisms such as the ones performed under the ICPRCP’s auspices is not a simple task.Footnote 150 They sometimes yield results that are not so easy to appraise and demand an analysis beyond what is normally expected from each procedure. In this sense, even though the ICPRCP’s role is limited to the tasks listed in Article 4 of its Statute, it is worth analyzing what “collateral effects” these procedures might have had on the dispute surrounding the Parthenon Sculptures.

The United Kingdom’s exposure to the international community

The first collateral effect to be noted is present in many ADR mechanisms both in and outside the United Nations’ scope – namely, exposing a state to international scrutiny. This process, often called “naming and shaming,” consists of the collection and dissemination of evidence of wrongdoing by a state to embarrass (or shame) governments into complying with a claim.Footnote 151 In the context of the Parthenon Sculptures dispute, the wide exposure of the United Kingdom’s actions and Greece’s arguments to the international community, due to the subject’s uninterrupted presence on the ICPRCP’s (and, thereby, UNESCO’s) agenda since 1978, can be said to be a double-edged sword.

In cultural property disputes, parties tend to have unequal bargaining power, especially considering that “source nations” tend to be developing nations and have historically been submitted to colonialism, occupation, or other forms of exploration, which tend to lower a state’s negotiating power.Footnote 152 Thus, from a positive angle, the international support that Greece has received for its claim against the United Kingdom has increased its bargaining power in this dispute, which augments the likelihood of a positive outcome. Having the ICPRCP explicitly stating in 2021 that Greece’s demand is “legitimate and rightful” further strengthened Greece’s argumentative stance.Footnote 153 Moreover, the negative exposure that the United Kingdom has received can be converted into internal pressure by the British people to reverse the situation.Footnote 154 Politics are considered one of the strongest factors that can trigger a turn in ADR processes,Footnote 155 and the issue of the Parthenon Sculptures has been the subject of marked political debates in the United Kingdom.Footnote 156

Nonetheless, one could argue that the dispute has received “too much attention,” leading to Greece’s disadvantage. The return of the Parthenon Sculptures has become the cause celèbre of restitution disputes,Footnote 157 and, for better or worse, its outcome is very likely to constitute an important precedent in the ever-increasing debate on the restitution of cultural property. For this reason, it has attracted an enormous defensiveness on the part of the United Kingdom, which is backed by other “market nations” that do not want to see their “universal collections” dispersed through restitution claims and that therefore oppose Greece’s claim.

The restitution of other fragments of the Parthenon

The great majority of the Parthenon Sculptures are either located in the British Museum or the New Acropolis Museum. Nonetheless, a small percentage of the sculptures are located elsewhere, and Greece’s persistence in pursuing restitution of the larger part from the United Kingdom has notably attracted the attention of states and institutions that house a few small pieces of the Parthenon. At the fourteenth session of the ICPRCP in 2007, the Secretariat informed the committee that, on 4 September 2006, the University of Heidelberg in Germany had returned a small piece of marble that had formerly been part of a slab of the Parthenon’s frieze, which was joined to the other remains of the frieze located in Athens.Footnote 158 Though small, this was the first fragment from the Parthenon Sculptures to be formally returned to Greece in 200 years.Footnote 159 Greece warmly thanked the university and gifted the head of a small statue to the university’s collection.Footnote 160

At the fifteenth session of the ICPRCP in 2009, two more such returns were reported.Footnote 161 In September 2008, Italy had returned to Greece a fragment of the Parthenon frieze representing the foot of the ancient goddess Artemis formerly held by the Palermo Museum. In November of the same year, the Vatican Museum had returned a fragment of the northern frieze of the Parthenon representing a young man’s head to Greece. These pieces had been requested by Greece for 13 and 18 years respectively. These three fragments were exhibited in the opening of the New Acropolis Museum, and the fact that they were co-exhibited in the Parthenon Hall with the original sculptures from which they were detached was given due notice by the ICPRCP at its sixteenth session in 2010.Footnote 162 The fact that these restitutions took place, notwithstanding the small size of the fragments, is a very symbolic outcome of the international visibility over Greece’s plea.

The promotion of the New Acropolis Museum

The New Acropolis Museum, constructed to house the archaeological findings of the Athenian Acropolis (most notably, the Parthenon Sculptures) in context, has figured in many resolutions and reports by the ICPRCP since the announcement of plans for its construction. The plans for the museum were noted at the ICPRCP’s fifth session in 1987,Footnote 163 and, at the sixth session in 1989, it acknowledged the final plans presented by Greece.Footnote 164 Greece continued to inform the ICPRCP of every step taken toward the museum’s construction, always expressing the highest praises toward it, which were sometimes echoed in the ICPRCP’s recommendations. For instance, at the seventh session in 1991, Greece announced that the “prize-winning plan of the new museum” would be showcased throughout Europe in a rotating exhibition.Footnote 165 This announcement must have attracted the attention of the European states present at the meeting.

Further updates were provided at the ninth session in 1996 and at the thirteenth session in 2005.Footnote 166 Finally, at the fourteenth session in 2007, Greece informed the ICPRCP of the New Acropolis Museum’s opening date, which stated in its recommendation that, in the museum, it “will be possible for the Parthenon sculptures to be exhibited in direct visual contact with the monument.”Footnote 167 A similar formula was repeated at the fifteenth session in 2009.Footnote 168 After the museum’s opening in 2009, Greece continued to promote it in the ICPRCP. At the sixteenth session in 2010, for instance, Greece stated that “the Museum was in direct visual contact with the Parthenon and thus offered an aesthetically perfect repository for the sculptures currently displayed at the British Museum.”Footnote 169

While the opening of the New Acropolis Museum did not have the game-changing result that was expected of it, its wide exposure to member states in the ICPRCP certainly granted it good publicity and fame. Considering the efforts by the British Museum and the United Kingdom to turn the Parthenon Sculptures dispute into a dispute within the museums,Footnote 170 the fame acquired by the New Acropolis Museum may be a factor positively influencing its bargaining power to negotiate directly with the British Museum, which is one of the most influential museums in the world. Further, the widespread promotion of the New Acropolis Museum has been beneficial to Greece’s tourism industry.

The publicity of the British Museum’s mishandling of the sculptures

As outlined above, Greece’s request for restitution under the ICPRCP’s standard procedure forced the United Kingdom to provide previously undisclosed information on the conservation of the sculptures. Also, at the ICPRCP’s tenth session in 1999, Greek scientists asked to be sponsored by UNESCO on a mission to the British Museum and to be given access to the sculptures to examine their state of conservation.Footnote 171 The British Museum then proposed to hold an international conference in November 1999 on the cleaning and conservation of the friezes, to which Greece and UNESCO could send experts.Footnote 172

Today, it is known that, in the late 1930s, the Parthenon Sculptures were severely damaged during a cleaning procedure performed by the British Museum that aimed to make the marbles look “more white” to please the gallery’s patron.Footnote 173 Nonetheless, the British Museum deployed great efforts to keep this mishandling of the sculptures a secret.Footnote 174 Thus, it was of the utmost importance for Greece’s claim that,Footnote 175 in the international conference held in the British Museum promoted under the ICPRCP’s auspices in 1999, Ian Jenkins, the then director of the British Museum, acknowledged that 40 percent of the sculptures were affected by the drastic cleaning carried out by his predecessors.Footnote 176 He also recognized that Lord Elgin’s team had damaged the Parthenon Sculptures while removing them.Footnote 177 While he added that the cleaning was “a thing of the past” and in no way altered the British Museum’s current responsibility for preserving the sculptures, this episode is still internationally seen as a major scandal.Footnote 178

The possibility of having the case analyzed by an international court

After the United Kingdom denied Greece’s request for mediation, Greece hired a group of lawyers to provide it with legal advice on the case.Footnote 179 They described this refusal as “the culmination of almost two centuries of efforts by Greece” to engage the British Museum and the United Kingdom in meaningful negotiations and argued that “there is no prospect of securing the return of the Marbles through UN-sponsored mediation; nor are there active negotiation channels which offer any realistic possibility of return in the near future.”Footnote 180 They thus concluded that only legal action could yield any result. Even though this idea was abandoned by the newly formed government in Greece,Footnote 181 it is still worth analyzing as the Greek government’s policy toward the issue is subject to change.

The experts recommended both an inter-state application to the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) and the request of an advisory opinion to the International Court of Justice (ICJ) by UNESCO.Footnote 182 An inter-state application to the ECtHR would require overcoming its admissibility requirements,Footnote 183 one of them being a rule on the exhaustion of domestic remedies. With respect to inter-state disputes concerning a state practice (and not a specific measure taken against specific individuals) with the aim of preventing its continuation or recurrence, two elements must be proven by the applicant state: a repetition of acts and official tolerance by the respondent state to their result.Footnote 184 It is possible to argue that the repeated rejection by the United Kingdom of all initiatives by Greece to engage in procedures before the ICPRCP since 1978 would suffice to fulfill both criteria.Footnote 185

Turning to the ICJ,Footnote 186 the court may issue an advisory opinion on any legal question at the request of one of the bodies authorized to do so under the UN Charter.Footnote 187 UNESCO is entitled to request advisory opinions on legal questions arising within the scope of its activities, which includes the promotion of restitution of cultural property.Footnote 188 Thus, the question of whether there is an obligation under customary international law to restitute cultural property under certain conditions would be encompassed. While the outcome of such a procedure would not be binding, advisory opinions by the ICJ are held in very high esteem by the international community.Footnote 189

It has been argued that the United Kingdom’s adamant refusal to engage in mediation has left UNESCO “duty-bound” to seek the ICJ’s opinion.Footnote 190 While there is no such legal duty, the fact that the Parthenon Sculptures dispute has been pending for decades before the ICPRCP and has exhausted all of its available ADR methods negatively impacts the committee’s work.Footnote 191 This could contribute to having UNESCO eventually submit a request for an advisory opinion. Thus, if any of these scenarios come into fruition, another collateral effect of the ICPRCP will be verifiable.

Conclusion

This article has assessed the impact that ADR mechanisms under the ICPRCP’s framework might have on cultural property restitution disputes barred by the non-retroactivity of the 1970 UNESCO Convention through a case study of the Parthenon Sculptures dispute. It has endeavored not only to reveal the impact of the regular procedures before the ICPRCP on the dispute but also to explore some of their “collateral effects” – even though they have not (at least not yet) led to restitution.

The case of the Parthenon Sculptures is undoubtedly complex, revealing the limits of voluntary and non-binding procedures often offered and supported by international organizations. Considering that the success of any claim before the ICPRCP is highly dependent on states’ will to cooperate toward a mutually agreeable solution, it is not surprising that the United Kingdom has been able to bar any significant attempt to have the Parthenon Sculptures restituted to Greece. In spite thereof, it has been argued that ADR mechanisms cannot be properly assessed by merely looking at their outcomes since other influences might be hidden behind an apparent failure. In terms of what has been accomplished through the regular proceedings of the ICPRCP, the following conclusions can be drawn:

  1. 1. The procedure concerning requests for restitution under the standard form tends to be short, considering that it consists of a request for restitution and not for entering negotiations that might lead to restitution. Nonetheless, the filling out of the standard form by both parties might be helpful in terms of establishing the factual background of a dispute, even forcing the requested state to disclose information it might otherwise have kept hidden.

  2. 2. The promotion of bilateral negotiations under the ICPRCP’s scope demonstrates the diversity of the committee’s efforts to promote the cooperation between the parties. While they have not led to the restitution of the Parthenon Sculptures – or generated any significant consensus between the parties – they have brought to light the lack of meaningful engagement by the United Kingdom with Greece’s claim.

  3. 3. The lack of cultural property exchanges effected under the ICPRCP’s scope has demonstrated that the issue of determining whether the British Museum has acquired ownership of the Parthenon Sculptures is central to the dispute and that there are not many prospects for a positive change in this situation in the near future.

  4. 4. The mediation procedures (or refusal thereof) demonstrate that the United Kingdom does not consider Greece’s claim with the due regard it deserves and make it difficult for the United Kingdom to continue to assert its “good faith” before the ICPRCP. This will increasingly complicate the United Kingdom’s stance before the international community. The ICPRCP has also provided a forum for states to express their dissatisfaction with the United Kingdom’s attitude toward Greece’s claim.

This analysis also has revealed five “collateral effects” of the ICPRCP’s efforts:

  1. 1. It is evident that the case has been widely exposed to the international community through the efforts of the ICPRCP. This “naming and shaming” is a double-edged sword: while it may have granted Greece more bargaining power – as well as national and international support – it might also have led to an increase of the United Kingdom’s defensiveness on the issue and of its support by states that fear the creation of a precedent favorable to restitution claims in general.

  2. 2. The wide publicity of the case has led to the restitution of other fragments of the Parthenon that, though small, carry symbolic weight.

  3. 3. The ICPRCP has provided a forum for the international promotion of the New Acropolis Museum, which could contribute toward increasing its bargaining power against the British Museum. In any event, such publicity is very beneficial to Greece’s tourism industry.

  4. 4. The bilateral talks and the exposure of their outcomes before the ICPRCP have led to an increase in international awareness about the damages inflicted upon the Parthenon Sculptures by the British Museum, which has made the United Kingdom’s stance more fragile.

  5. 5. The stalemate before the ICPRCP may contribute to having the case eventually presented to an international court, either through an inter-state dispute before the ECtHR or an advisory opinion before the ICJ.

The history of Greece’s claim over the Parthenon Sculptures is a lesson on persistence. The fact that it has been present in the ICPRCP’s agenda for almost four decades has evidenced the complex set of factors in interplay that must be considered before dismissing the ICPRCP as “inefficient” for not leading to the restitution of the sculptures. This article has highlighted some of these factors and the impact they may have on a dispute over the restitution of cultural heritage. It also has provided an opportunity to reflect on the potential effectiveness of ADR procedures on other cases under the ICPRCP’s scope and beyond.

Footnotes

1 Convention on the Means of Prohibiting and Preventing the Illicit Import, Export and Transfer of Ownership of Cultural Property, 14 November 1970, 823 UNTS 231 (1970 UNESCO Convention).

2 Robertson Reference Robertson2019.

3 See, e.g., Robertson Reference Robertson2002, 450; Greenfield Reference Greenfield2007, 47; Fincham Reference Fincham2013, 949; see also Geoffrey Robertson, “The Case for Return of the Parthenon Sculptures,” The Guardian, https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2016/may/08/greece-international-justice-regain-parthenon-marbles-uk (accessed 10 December 2020). See Footnote note 179 below.

4 It is worth highlighting that the settlement of claims is not the only function of the Intergovernmental Committee for Promoting the Return of Cultural Property to Its Countries of Origin or Its Restitution in Case of Illicit Appropriation (ICPRCP). See Prott Reference Prott2009, 16–17.

5 Some of the states’ impressions were collected in United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) 2014; see also Stamatoudi Reference Stamatoudi2016, 346.

6 In addition to mediation and conciliation, which were added to the ICPRCP’s mandate in 2005, the committee also pursues bilateral negotiations as a means for settling disputes. Though, in certain contexts, it is incorrect to include bilateral negotiations as an alternative dispute resolution (ADR) method, ADR can be employed to describe the work of the ICPRCP generally. See Menkel-Meadow et al. Reference Menkel-Meadow, Love, Schneider and Sternlight2018 (“ADR has come to connote all dispute resolution processes other than formal court adjudicatory processes”). On the taxonomy of ADR processes, see Menkel-Meadow Reference Menkel-Meadow2018.

7 See Shehade and Fouseki Reference Shehade and Fouseki2016.

8 Until the twenty-second session of the ICPRCP in 2021, the last session before the conclusion of this article.

9 A similar concern was expressed, for instance, in United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) Resolution 70/76, 2015, https://www.un.org/en/ga/search/view_doc.asp?symbol=A/RES/70/76 (accessed 22 November 2020).

10 UNESCO Constitution, 4 November 1945, 4 UNTS 275, Arts. 1, 2.

11 UNESCO 1968.

12 UNESCO 1970a.

13 For details, see UNESCO 1970b, paras. 82–85.

14 In broad terms, “source nations” can be defined as the nations that are a vast source of cultural artifacts for which there is a world market and that, in most cases, have been historically plundered and deprived of important parts of their heritage. The “market nations” are states where the “demand” for cultural objects exceeds the “supply” and therefore have historically received (both legally and illegally) objects from the “source nations.” See Hoffman Reference Hoffman2009, 89.

15 For more details, see Bator Reference Bator1982, 275–384; see also O’Keefe Reference O’Keefe2007.

16 Others are cited in Prott Reference Prott2012; see also Prott and O’Keefe Reference Prott and O’Keefe1990, 813.

17 The 1970 UNESCO Convention does not explicitly state its not-retroactivity. Nonetheless, it is non-retroactive due to the general principle under international law that treaties do not apply retroactively unless they explicitly state otherwise, as crystallized in the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties, 27 January 1980, 1155 UNTS 331, Art. 28. See also Shaw Reference Shaw2017. It is worth noticing that Art. 15 of the 1970 UNESCO Convention, as well as its Operational Guidelines (see UNESCO 1970b, paras. 100–2), provide that the non-retroactive application of treaties does not in any way legitimize transactions that have taken place before the entry into force of the convention.

18 See Prott and O’Keefe Reference Prott and O’Keefe1990, paras. 1417, 1514 (on this debate during the 1970 UNESCO Convention’s travaux préparatoires).

19 See Chechi Reference Chechi2014, 118.

20 The difficulties posed by non-retroactivity were recognized by the ICPRCP, for instance, in ICPRCP 2010c, para. 27; see also Prott Reference Prott2012, 4.

21 UNGA Resolution 3187 (XXVIII), 1973, http://www.unesco.org/culture/laws/pdf/UNGA_resolution3187.pdf (accessed 22 November 2020). This resolution was adopted by 113 in favor to none against, with 17 abstentions (14 European states accompanied by Japan, South Africa, and the United States).

22 UNGA Resolution 3391 (XXX), 1975, http://www.unesco.org/culture/laws/pdf/UNGA_resolution3391.pdf (accessed 22 November 2020). (emphasis in original).

23 For other relevant UNGA resolutions, see Prott and O’Keefe Reference Prott and O’Keefe1990, 815–16.

24 See UNESCO 1976.

25 More details in Prott Reference Prott2009, 16–17.

26 UNESCO 1978.

27 It is worth clarifying that the ICPRCP is independent of the 1970 UNESCO Convention but has served as its de facto monitoring body for decades, as the Convention did not provide for a committee. This began to change when the first Meeting of States Parties was held in 2003. The second Meeting of States Parties took place in 2012 and finally adopted rules establishing a biennial Meeting of States Parties and a subsidiary committee composed of representatives of 18 states parties to meet annually. See UNESCO 2019, 3.

28 UNESCO 1978.

29 See Statute of the ICPRCP, 1978, Art. 4 (ICPRCP Statute). Further disadvantages are described in Ognibene Reference Ognibene2019, 613; see also Chechi Reference Chechi2014, 103.

30 UNESCO 2005, Recommendation no. 44.

31 As reflected ICPRCP Statute, Art. 4.1, as amended: “The outcome of the mediation and conciliation process is not binding on the Member States concerned, so that if it does not lead to the settlement of a problem, it shall remain before the Committee, like any other unresolved question which has been submitted to it.”

32 UNESCO 2005, Recommendation no. 3, para. 1.

33 ICPRCP 2009d, para. 17.

34 UNESCO 2010.

35 Alongside the dispute over the Parthenon Sculptures, a dispute between Zambia and the United Kingdom over the Broken Hillman Skull, submitted by Zambia at the twentieth session of the ICPRCP in 2018 is still pending (see ICPRCP 2018a, para. 25). A new request for return or restitution was recently analyzed by the ICPRCP at its twenty-second session concerning the Ife Bronze Head, stolen from Nigeria in 1987 and currently held in the United Kingdom (see ICPRCP 2021a, paras. 18–20). The previous cases submitted to the ICPRCP are the Phra Narai lintel (Thailand and the United States, solved by mediation), the Panel of Tyche (Jordan and the United States, solved by mediation), the sphinx of Bogazköy (Egypt and Germany, solved by direct return), the Bogazköy cuneiform tablets (Turkey and Germany, resolved by direct return), pre-Columbian gold (Ecuador and Italy, solved by litigation), the archaeological objects from the Necropolis of Khurvin (Iran and Belgium, suspended), and the Makondé mask (Tanzania and Switzerland, solved by return under the auspices of the International Council of Museums [ICOM]).

36 ICPRCP 2021a, para. 10. In a questionnaire applied by the Secretariat to the ICPRCP’s members in 2020, 70 percent of the replies “highlighted the importance of increasing the number of return and restitution cases submitted to the ICPRCP by Members States and boosting the use of the mediation and conciliation procedure.” See ICPRCP 2021a, Annex I, para. 5.

37 On the construction of the Parthenon, see Feeley Reference Feeley2004; see also Stokstad and Oppenheimer Reference Stokstad and Oppenheimer1999. For general information on the Parthenon, see Beard Reference Beard2010.

38 For more detailed descriptions, see Robertson Reference Robertson2019; see also Divari-Valakou Reference Divari-Valakou, Gabriel and Dahl2008, 117; Waxman Reference Waxman2008, 235.

39 The only significant damage that it had suffered before Lord Elgin’s arrival was caused by an explosion during the Great Turkish War. See Mommsen Reference Mommsen1941. The Parthenon had the greater part of its frieze and sculptures still attached to the building when Elgin’s team arrived. See also Robertson Reference Robertson2019.

40 On how Greece went into Ottoman control, see Pavan Reference Pavan1983, 84–113.

41 See Waxman Reference Waxman2008, 221.

42 See generally Robertson Reference Robertson2019. On his original intention, see Fincham Reference Fincham2013, 974.

43 A local authority, the Disdar, charged significant amounts for limited access to the Acropolis and was eventually forbidden to do so by his superiors, the Voivode and the Cadi. See Smith Reference Smith1916, 186.

44 See Greenfield Reference Greenfield2007, 61. The evidence available on the existence of this authorization consists of two surviving translations (one in Italian and one in English), as the original document has never been found. See Robertson Reference Robertson2001, 1858–60. Even if one considers that the English translation (relied upon by the United Kingdom to substantiate the British Museum’s title over the sculptures) as reliable, the document did not permit the removal of any sculptures attached to the Parthenon or any operation that would harm the figures and edifices of the Acropolis. The translation is available in UK House of Commons (Parliamentary Select Committee), Report from the Select Committee of the House of Commons on the Earl of Elgin’s Collection of Sculptured Marbles, 1816, xxiv, https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=gri.ark:/13960/t0ps2d92n&view=1up&seq=5 (accessed 22 November 2020).

45 See Smith Reference Smith1916.

46 Smith Reference Smith1916 (for a detailed account of the whole operation). For a list of the removed pieces, see UK House of Commons, Earl of Elgin’s Collection, xxvii.

47 See Waxman Reference Waxman2008, 228; see also Greenfield Reference Greenfield2007, 62.

48 See UK House of Commons, Earl of Elgin’s Collection, 1.

49 UK House of Commons, Earl of Elgin’s Collection.

50 Robertson Reference Robertson2019.

51 See Stamatoudi Reference Stamatoudi2016, 447–48. Greece described its own efforts at the twenty-first session of the ICPRCP. See ICPRCP 2018a, paras. 20–21.

52 See Hitchens Reference Hitchens and Hitchens2008, 80–81 (describing a “moratorium” between 1967 and 1974 when supporters of restitution temporarily ceased all such demands as Greece was under military rule).

53 World Conference on Cultural Properties 1982 (emphasis added).

54 ICPRCP 1983, para. 18.

55 As described in Stamatoudi Reference Stamatoudi2016, 449.

56 ICPRCP 2021b, Decision no. 6, para. 3 (referring to the previous 16 recommendations, to which Recomendation no. 6 of the twenty-second session must be added). See also ICPRCP 2016c, para. 28 (“[s]ince 1984, the Committee has been examining it during its successive sessions and has adopted several Recommendations expressing concern for a mutually-acceptable solution to be reached and inviting the Director-General to facilitate encounters to that effect. On many occasions, UNESCO reiterated its readiness to act as facilitator between Greece and the United Kingdom in this regard”).

57 ICPRCP 1983, para. 18.

58 ICPRCP 1985, para. 4.

59 ICPRCP 1985, para. 4.

60 ICPRCP 1987, para. 15.

61 ICPRCP 1987, para. 15. Some suggestions included “[to] tail in experts who might as necessary provide advice of a technical nature” and “to launch an international information campaign in order to heighten public awareness of the particular case of the ‘Elgin Marbles’ [sic].”

62 ICPRCP 1987, para. 15.

63 ICPRCP 1987, para. 15.

64 ICPRCP 1987, para. 15.

65 Greenfield Reference Greenfield2007.

66 Copies of the request for restitution are sent to the holding state, to all members of the ICPRCP, and to ICOM and can be made available upon request during the ICPRCP’s sessions. See ICPRCP 1985, para. 2.

67 See ICPRCP 2009d, para. 20 (“[t]his 15-page document is generally considered to be much too long and detailed and to constitute an obstacle to the use of the Committee by States in order to facilitate procedures for the restitution of cultural property”).

68 See ICPRCP 1986, para. 2.

69 Field A.6 of the standard form requires “details concerning the decay of constituent materials, deterioration noted, intentional or accidental mutilations, if any, restoration carried out.”

70 ICPRCP 2001, para. 2.

71 ICPRCP Reference Jenkins2001, para. 2. The importance of this specific information will be discussed below.

72 ICPRCP 1987, Recommendation no. 3.

73 ICPRCP 1989, para. 3, Recommendation no. 1, preamble.

74 ICPRCP 1991.

75 ICPRCP 1994, para. 10.

76 ICPRCP 1996, Recommendation no. 1, para. 1.

77 ICPRCP 2001, para. 1.

78 Though the recommendation of the eleventh session in 2001 is not publicly available, this was described in the report of the following session. See ICPRCP 2003, para. 5.

79 ICPRCP 2003, para. 5.

80 ICPRCP 2003, para. 5.

81 ICPRCP 2003, para. 6.

82 ICPRCP 2003, Recommendation no. 1.

83 ICPRCP 2005b, para. 1.

84 ICPRCP 2005b, para. 1. In the meeting, it was clarified that: “(a) because of the legal status of the British Museum which makes it independent in this regard from the British Government, it is the prerogative of the Board of Trustees of the British Museum to determine the disposition of the Parthenon Marbles; and (b) the independent status of the British Museum may be changed by a law, but the British Government is not currently considering to revise legislation on this matter.”

85 ICPRCP 2005a, Recommendation no. 1.

86 ICPRCP 2005a, para. 7.

87 ICPRCP 2005a, para. 7.

88 ICPRCP 2005a, Recommendation no. 4.

89 ICPRCP 2007a, para. 1.

90 ICPRCP 2007a, para. 1. According to the Secretariat, “[t]he aim of the meeting was to follow up the discussions that have been held since 2003, taking into consideration the imminent completion of the Acropolis Museum.”

91 ICPRCP 2007b, Recommendation no. 1, paras. 1, 3.

92 ICPRCP 2009a, paras. 3–4.

93 ICPRCP 2009b, Recommendation no. 1, para. 1; 2009e, para. 14.

94 ICPRCP 2009e, para. 1.

95 ICPRCP 2010b, para. 2.

96 ICPRCP 2010c, Recommendation no. 1, para. 4.

97 ICPRCP 2011a, para. 2.

98 ICPRCP 2011b, Recommendation no. 2, para. 1.

99 ICPRCP 2012a, Recommendation no. 5, para. 1.

100 ICPRCP 2014a, Recommendation 8, para. 3; 2014b, para. 7.

101 ICPRCP 2014b, para. 13.

102 ICPRCP 2016a, Recommendation no. 1.

103 ICPRCP 2018a.

104 ICPRCP 2021a, para. 14. According to the Secretariat’s report in 2020, “Greece responded with a letter describing all the actions that were undertaken by Greece in this regard since the 21st session,” and, in 2021, “the UK replied stating that in the 21st session of the ICPRCP there seemed to be a consensus that it was not satisfactory to continue with the status quo.”

105 ICPRCP 2021b, Recommendation no. 6, para. 7.

106 ICPRCP 2021b, Decision no. 5, para. 5.

107 ICPRCP 2021b, Decision no. 6, paras. 8, 9, 11.

108 Chechi Reference Chechi, Chechi and Gordley2013, 188.

109 Shehade and Fouseki Reference Shehade and Fouseki2016, 357.

110 Positive collateral effects of these negotiations will be discussed below.

111 ICPRCP 2003, para. 5.

112 ICPRCP 2005a, para. 7. The fact that the UK attempted to avoid having the dispute over the Parthenon Sculptures continuously discussed in the ICPRCP might be an evidence of some degree of pressure the Committee is able to exercise.

113 ICPRCP 2021b, Decision no. 6, para. 9.

114 ICPRCP 2021b, Decision no. 6, paras. 8, 9, 11.

115 ICPRCP 2003, para. 7.

116 ICPRCP 2009e, para. 14.

117 ICPRCP 2009e, para. 14.

118 As argued in Robertson, “Case for Return.” See Footnote note 179 below.

119 A few were noted in the twenty-first session (“[i]n late 2016, the British Museum presented a replica of a lion’s head waterspout from the Parthenon to colleagues in the Acropolis Restoration Service. The British Museum also lent four significant objects to the Acropolis Museum for an exhibition in summer 2017”). See ICPRCP 2018a, para. 22.

120 ICPRCP 2018a, para. 21.

121 ICPRCP 2018a, para. 22.

122 ICPRCP 2005b, para. 1.

123 For details on the controversy, see Robertson, “Case for Return.”

124 ICPRCP 2012b, para. 13.

125 It is worth noticing that, while Greece originally did not wish to concede on the ownership argument (see, for instance, ICPRCP 2009e, para. 14, it later seems to have suggested a compromise by offering the abandonment of its ownership claims in exchange for having the Parthenon Sculptures permanently unified in the Acropolis Museum. See Woodhouse and Pepin Reference Woodhouse and Pepin2017.

126 ICPRCP 2014b, para. 18.

127 ICPRCP 2014b, para. 7.

128 Stamatoudi Reference Stamatoudi2016, 450.

129 ICPRCP 2014b, para. 18.

130 Stamatoudi Reference Stamatoudi2016, 450.

131 ICPRCP 2014a, Recommendation no. 8, para. 2.

132 ICPRCP 2016a, Decision no. 5, para. 4.

133 ICPRCP 2016a, Recommendation, para. 4.

134 This delay bears a striking similarity with the United Kingdom’s denial of engaging in the ICPRCP’s regular restitution procedures, delivered on the last possible day.

135 The letters were published in Elginism, “UK Government Rejects Parthenon Marbles UNESCO Mediation,” Elginism, http://www.elginism.com/elgin-marbles/uk-government-rejects-parthenon-marbles-unesco-mediation/20150327/7859/ (accessed 10 December 2020) (emphasis added). They were presented by Greece to the ICPRCP. See ICPRCP 2016b, para. 13.

136 “UK Government Rejects Parthenon Marbles” (emphasis added).

137 ICPRCP 2016b, paras. 13–14.

138 ICPRCP 2016b, para. 14.

139 ICPRCP 2018a, para. 20.

140 ICPRCP 2018a, paras. 23–24.

141 ICPRCP 2018b, Recommendation no. 5, para. 8; Recommendation no. 7.

142 Stamatoudi Reference Stamatoudi2016, 450.

143 This seems contradictory to the British Museum’s assertion that its decision was reached “after full and careful consideration.”

144 As argued in Stamatoudi Reference Stamatoudi2016, 450.

145 Very likely contributing to the committee’s decision to imply that the United Kingdom is not engaging in a “bone fide dialogue with Greece.” See ICPRCP 2021b, Decision no. 6, para. 11.

146 Stamatoudi Reference Stamatoudi2016, 450.

147 It is worth noticing that, in 2021, the ICPRCP explicitly recognized “that the case has an intergovernmental character and, therefore, the obligation to return the Parthenon Sculptures lies squarely on the United Kingdom Government.” See ICPRCP 2021b, Decision no. 6, para. 7.

148 As described in Robertson, “Case for Return.” See Footnote note 179 below.

149 ICPRCP 2018b, Decision no. 5, para. 8 (emphasis in original).

150 Stamatoudi Reference Stamatoudi2016, 345, 352.

151 See Cardenas Reference Cardenas2007; see also Pellet and Barsac Reference Pellet and Barsac2019.

152 Chechi Reference Chechi2014, 103.

153 ICPRCP 2021b, Decision no. 6, para. 5.

154 For instance, a MORI Institute poll found that, already in 1998, most of the United Kingdom’s population was familiar with the issue and favorable to the return of the Parthenon Sculptures – a pattern repeated on subsequent polls. See Robertson, “Case for Return.” See Footnote note 179 below.

155 Stamatoudi Reference Stamatoudi2016, 352.

156 Some instances of political debates within the United Kingdom are described in Woodhouse and Pepin Reference Woodhouse and Pepin2017. It is worth noticing that Jeremy Corbyn, the United Kingdom’s labor party leader and a candidate for prime minister, had pledged to return the Parthenon Sculptures to Greece if he won the election. See Jane Dalton, “Corbyn Vows to Return Elgin Marbles to Greece If He Becomes Prime Minister,” Independent, https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/corbyn-return-elgin-marbles-greece-british-museum-a8381681.html (accessed 10 December 2020).

157 Greenfield Reference Greenfield2007.

158 ICPRCP 2007a, Annex I, paras. 1-4.

159 ICPRCP 2007a, Annex I, para. 2. It is worth noticing that the decision to return the piece was not taken by the German authorities but, rather, by academics of the university. ICPRCP 2007a, Annex I, para. 3.

160 ICPRCP 2007b, para. 4.

161 ICPRCP 2009a, Annex 1.

162 ICPRCP 2010a, Recommendation no. 1, para. 3.

163 ICPRCP 1987, para. 15.

164 ICPRCP 1989, Recommendation no. 1.

165 ICPRCP 1991, para. 34.

166 ICPRCP 1996, para. 8 (mentioning the submission of the New Acropolis Museum’s final plan, including blueprints and technical specifications); 2005a, para. 7 (providing updates on the museum’s construction).

167 ICPRCP 2007b, Recommendation no. 1.

168 ICPRCP 2009a, Recommendation no. 1.

169 ICPRCP 2010c, para. 16.

170 This stance was countered by the ICPRCP in 2021. See ICPRCP 2021b, Decision no. 6, para. 7.

171 ICPRCP 1999, para. 2.

172 ICPRCP 1999, para. 2.

173 See Robertson, “Case for Return.” See Footnote note 179 below. For the disclosure of the damage, see Jenkins Reference Jenkins2001.

174 See Robertson, “Case for Return.” See Footnote note 179 below.

175 It is worth clarifying that the cleaning scandal had been first revealed by St Clair in Reference St Clair1998 (see St Clair Reference St Clair1998). Here, it is argued that the ICPRCP helped publicize these facts.

176 ICPRCP 2001, para. 1.

177 ICPRCP 2001, para. 1.

178 See Robertson, “Case for Return.” See Footnote note 179 below.

179 Geoffrey Robertson, Norman Palmer, and Amal Clooney were hired to prepare a full legal case to be taken up by Greek lawyers. Robertson was also asked to summarize their findings in a shorter paper. Before they finished the work, a new culture minister announced that they would reject their advice and further rely on political and diplomatic fora. Their brief on the case was never published, and the paper by Robertson was leaked through The Guardian. This work is herein cited as Robertson, “Case for Return.”

180 See Robertson, “Case for Return.” See Footnote note 179 above.

181 As described in Van Beurden Reference Van Beurden2017, 67.

182 See Robertson, “Case for Return.” See Footnote note 179 above.

183 These requirements were subject to a detailed analysis in the author’s unpublished LLM thesis. See Haertel Reference Haertel2020.

184 ECtHR, Georgia v. Russia I, 30 June 2009, Application no. 13255/07, para. 40.

185 This argument was presented in Haertel Reference Haertel2020.

186 On the reasons why a case before the International Court of Justice (under its contentious jurisdiction) was not considered an option, see Robertson, “Case for Return.” See Footnote note 179 above.

187 See Statute of the International Court of Justice, 24 October 1945, 1 UNTS XVI, Art. 65.

188 According to Charter of the United Nations, 24 October 1945, 1 UNTS XVI, Art. 96; UNESCO Relationship Agreement with the United Nations, 3 February 1947, 1 UNTS 233, Art. 10(2).

189 Thirlway Reference Thirlway2006.

190 See Robertson, “Case for Return.” See Footnote note 179 above.

191 Prott Reference Prott2009, 372.

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