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UNESCO marks 50th anniversary of 1970 Cultural Heritage Convention with fake campaign
Above: The UNESCO advert that sparked suspicion and led to the campaign being unmasked as fake. In what must be one of the most stunningly cynical attacks on the international art market yet, UNESCO has been caught out promoting a fake campaign to mark the 50th...
Time for UNESCO to stop using bogus figures about cultural property
In the latest of a string of baseless claims, UNESCO reports that the illicit trade in cultural property is estimated to be worth nearly $10 billion a year. It’s a handy figure to use as a headline to launch its 1970 Convention’s 50th anniversary conference and...
ADA to the fore at UNIDROIT’s 25th anniversary conference
Joanna van der Lande, who chairs the Antiquities Dealers Association, was invited to present an extended article and speak at the conference to mark 25 years of the UNIDROIT Convention on October 8 and 9. Also invited to speak was Martin Wilson, General Counsel to the...
Latest Views
What will the EU import licensing regulations mean for the trade and others?
Now the European Union has adopted new import licensing regulations for cultural property, what will it mean for the art market?
The problem with provenance and what we can do about it
TIMES HAVE CHANGED, BUT SO HAS THE ANTIQUITIES MARKET. ITS CRITICS NEED TO RECOGNISE THIS AND WORK WITH IT FOR A BETTER FUTURE By Joanna van der Lande The inclusion of the art trade in this debate is crucial, both to explain the complexities of dealing in often small...
Terrorism, Cultural Heritage and the Threat to Museums’ Public Missions
Collector Matthew Polk, a board member of the Committee For Cultural Policy and trustee of a number of museums, has written a detailed paper on how the war on terror has shifted cultural property policy from preservation to enforcement, with a number of unwarranted...