by ADA | Jul 28, 2026 | Uncategorized, Views |
After five years of dialogue, UNESCO has finally published its revised Code of Ethics for the international art market. The idea is that it should set improved standards of conduct that follow the latest ethical guidelines to protect national interests and prevent crimes such as looting and trafficking.
The Code is currently voluntary. Will it work?
The approach, tone and lack of precision leave it facing an uphill struggle to convince market professionals that it will also protect their interests.
The problems start in the first sentence: “Members of the trade in cultural property recognise the key role that trade has traditionally played in the dissemination of culture and in the distribution to museums and private collectors of foreign and domestic cultural property for the education and inspiration of all peoples.”
Yes, the trade does recognise this, but the question is whether UNESCO recognises it. No acknowledgement here.
Sentence two brings its own issues: “They [the trade] acknowledge the worldwide concern over the illicit trafficking of stolen, illegally alienated, clandestinely excavated and illegally exported and imported cultural property, in line with the MONDIACULT 2022 Declaration, and accept the following principles of professional practice intended to safeguard cultural property from criminal activities.”
Risk of undermining human rights
What does ‘illegally alienated’ mean in this context? No explanation appears. And the assumption that the trade falls in line with the Mondiacult 2022 Declaration is misguided. That Declaration makes a commitment to return cultural property to its countries of origin even if it was not removed illegally. The Declaration makes assumptions about ethics in relation to cultural property that are based on questionable current trends in ideology rather than a broader, long-standing moral and common-law principle. For instance, it stresses the importance of human rights but then sets out to undermine those rights when it comes to the private ownership of cultural property, by demanding an end to transactions where provenance documentation is incomplete. It appears to call on UNESCO to act beyond its remit.
The whole approach to how the trade should adopt and commit to the Code is unsettling. Far from being constructive and persuasive, the tone is menacing and manipulative. Traders who voluntary abide by the Code “should be recognised as having committed themselves to a set of professional standards”. This is unnecessary in the case of those who have already done so in becoming members of trade associations that have codes of practice – a stricter commitment than that required by a code of ethics.
Likewise, “Traders who have decided to abide by the principles of the Code will submit a declaration to that effect to UNESCO, as well as to their professional association. Professional associations of traders that support UNESCO in promoting their members’ compliance with the principles of the Code will submit a declaration to that effect to the UNESCO Secretariat.”
None of this sounds voluntary.
What a ‘living document’ might mean
What happens if they follow these directions? How long before UNESCO leverages this position to try to enforce its Code as national and international law by the back door?
The trouble with such declarations made in this way – and mentioning that they have consulted the art market – is that it suggests that the Code enjoys trade endorsement, which it doesn’t. Nor is it workable. The danger is that decision-makers will believe otherwise. And so the bar is raised ever higher, making trade professionals’ daily lives impossible.
Further enhancement along these lines seems likely in the context of Member States emphasizing that the Code should be considered as a ‘living document’, with UNESCO periodically assessing it with ‘relevant stakeholders’ to ensure its continued relevance in light of evolving challenges related to trafficking. This is nothing less than a blank cheque. It is not fair to ask the market to sign up to this.
Principle 1 distinguishes “illegally alienated” cultural property from that which may have been stolen… clandestinely excavated or illegally exported or imported. But what does illegally alienated mean here? As can be seen from the Member States’ caveat above, the goalposts are ever on the move. Goods legally sold and exported years ago are now being deemed national property and illicit in domestic law as nations update their cultural heritage legislation in ever more restrictive ways. Under the Code, this might well render such goods illicit internationally, even when they have been legally traded and owned privately for lengthy periods, and so might be subject to confiscation.
While Principle 2 reasonably commits traders to recording transactional information such as the identity of suppliers, any attempt to use that as a stepping stone to force them to reveal confidential information protected by contractual obligations would cause serious problems. This would be possible under a ‘living document’.
Further lack of clarity over terms
Principle 3 commits traders to conducting ‘proper’ due diligence without fully stipulating what that constitutes. Again it talks of ‘illegally alienated’ items, as well as checking “any other relevant information and documentation which they can reasonably obtain” and scrutinising ICOM Red Lists. What does ‘reasonably obtain’ mean? If due diligence is too burdensome, it would render much of the lower end of the market uneconomic. What measures have been put in place to prevent that?
Principle 4 describes a trader’s ‘reasonable cause’ to believe that an item might be illicit and what their commitment must be under those circumstances but does not define ‘reasonable cause’ in this context.
Principle 4 also states: “A trader who is in possession of the item, where that country seeks its return within a reasonable period of time, will take all legally permissible steps under the trader’s applicable national law to co-operate in view of the return of that item of cultural property to the country of origin.” This appears to commit a trader to return an item simply on the basis of a claim, regardless of whether or not they hold the item lawfully. Long experience has shown that countries of origin claim items whatever their status, so without qualifying that the item must be illicit, the Code would prove unacceptable to the market. Such a catch-all condition would also be inconsistent with pre-existing national or international laws or conventions, such as statutes of limitation endorsed by UNESCO 1970 and UNIDROIT 1995 which are routinely ignored.
Principle 5 repeats the demands of Principle 4, putting the burden on the trader to ensure the item is returned.
No clause addresses the rights of the traders.
An opportunity missed
In recent years, art market stakeholders have been included in discussions about the drafting of the Code, but in the final two meetings earlier this year, CINOA, the global trade federation representing 5,000 dealers – the largest trade group in the world and the vital market stakeholder – was inexplicably not invited to attend. How did that happen?
UNESCO’s new Code of Ethics is an opportunity missed. It appears to blur the line between ethical aspiration and legal requirement. It should have been drafted as a constructive agreement between stakeholders to improve standards and create more clarity; instead its tone and terms appear intimidatory and opaque. It is inconsistent with the laws of numerous countries in relation to property rights and good faith purchases. Market stakeholders approached this initiative in good faith. The result is far from what they could agree to.
by ADA | Jun 25, 2026 | News |
Antiques Trade Gazette has just published an excellent guide to permissions regarding non-European Union goods returning to the EU with a three-year period.
Following clarification from the European Commission, legal columnist Milton Silverman confirms that these goods do not need an import licence or statement if they have been in free circulation within the EU, are exported from the EU and then return there within a three-year period. Importantly, the item does not have to return to the same person or EU member state from which it was exported.
The article sets out a case study where a Belgian collector who understood the rules came up against a shipper who did not. While the rules may now be clear, ensuring that customs enforcement and others involved along the way are fully conversant with the rules is another matter.
Silverman adds information relating to duty relief and VAT, as well as the rights and process of appeal if customs do not honour the three-year rule.
by ADA | Jun 24, 2026 | Uncategorized |
Out now for almost six months, the World Customs Organisation’s latest Illicit Trade Report (ITR) covers the year 2024. The introduction hails the report as offering “a comprehensive analysis of the dynamics and evolving trends of illicit trade. This edition underscores the complexity and adaptability of transnational criminal networks, highlighting impacts on public safety, global security, and sustainable development.”
So what does the highly detailed and analytical 305-page report have to say about cultural property crime?
Very little indeed.
On page 23, a bar chart provides The Number of Responses to the WCO Seizure Statistics. These appear to refer to the number of customs forces who have replied to a WCO survey asking for the number and volume of seizures in their jurisdiction. Responses concerning cultural goods rose from around 29 to 33 year-on-year to 2024.
A bubble chart on the following page appears to show a 75% rise in the number of cases involving cultural goods with a rise in the volume of goods seized somewhere below 5%. However, it also shows that the volume is tiny compared to any other form of illicit activity except for Explosive Precursors – chemicals that can be used in the creation of explosives.
On the following bubble chart showing year on year trends, cultural goods do not appear at all.
Chart 4 on page 26 illustrates priorities by commodity, with Cultural Goods listed as an Essential priority for around four out of 70 Customs administrations – the lowest score for any commodity. Around another eight administrations see it as a High priority, again the lowest score, and by some distance compared to most other commodities. These ratings remain almost unchanged from 2023, as the next bar chart shows us on page 27.
The attraction of fungible items
A key consideration making commodities attractive for money laundering is their fungibility, according to the introduction to the chapter on ML on page 37: “…the majority of these cases involve the illicit movement of bulk cash, but also include significant quantities of gold, rhodium, silver, and precious stones, including diamonds. These materials, due to their high value-to-weight ratio, fungibility, and ease of transport, remain attractive to criminal networks seeking to transfer or launder proceeds across borders while evading detection.”
As readers will know, a distinctive feature about artworks and antiquities is that they are not fungible.
Much of the Money Laundering and Counter Terrorism Financing chapter is dedicated to currency and gold smuggling – by far the biggest problem it identifies when it comes to ML, with an additional issue involving agricultural equipment in Brazil.
Saudi Arabia, Bangladesh and India reported the most cases, with Japan, Turkey and Sri Lanka next. All countries on the list are in the Middle East, Far East, Balkans and eastern Mediterranean. On page 68, the report concludes re ML: “The consistent involvement of departure points like UAE, Saudi Arabia, and Hong Kong-China, and destination corridors into India, Türkiye, Japan, and Bangladesh, suggests entrenched regional laundering networks that demand multi-jurisdictional enforcement.” Note: ‘regional’.
Jewellery and the high-risk traveller
On page 63, it reports: “Jewellery smuggling via couriers remains a key modality: The high number of pieces seized in Saudi Arabia, Türkiye, and Japan indicates frequent interception of concealed jewellery worn or carried by passengers, underlining the importance of profiling high-risk travellers and body-worn concealment detection.”
Overall, the ITR is extremely detailed, providing numerous graphs, data sets, case studies and photographs of seizures on extensive chapters concerning ML and terrorism financing, drug trafficking, environmental crime, intellectual property rights, health and safety, revenue fraud and smuggling, and security breaches.
Cultural goods had their own chapter – albeit revealing just how small the problem is – for several years until the early 2020s. No more, however.
Considering the level of intelligence in every other sphere of interest across such a wide number of jurisdictions, it is hardly credible that the dearth of data when it comes to cultural goods can be explained entirely by under reporting. At no point in any past WCO report have cultural goods ever shown any significant contribution to illicit trade on a global scale in comparison to other spheres. Now they show even less, despite all the lobbying claims to the contrary.
Customs administrations have consistently ranked it as their lowest priority. Could this be because it is the smallest issue that they face in this context?
by ADA | May 21, 2026 | Uncategorized, Views |
In 2025 a bipartisan group of U.S. Senators pushed for new anti-money laundering regulation of the art market under the Bank Secrecy Act.
Already in force in the UK and Europe, AML laws as they apply to the art market may help fight crime and deter wrong doers, but the burden of compliance can come at a significant cost in terms of money and time.
A serious study of AML impact on the art market in the UK, which leads the world with regards to these measures in this sector, has yet to take place, but anecdotal evidence indicates that at least some would-be buyers are being put off by the requirements of compliance on their part, and by the intrusion into their privacy. This is not because they have something to hide but because the hassle has spoiled their enjoyment of the process of acquisition and they simply can’t be bothered to go through with it.
How do you balance the interests of crime prevention with those of the market?
The most obvious way would be to raise what appears to be an arbitrarily low value threshold for compliance: set at €10,000 for a single transaction or group of linked transactions (not always clearly defined), in the UK that is changing to £10,000.
Take a risk-based approach
Raising the threshold significantly can be argued from taking that vital ‘risk-based approach’ when one considers reporting in France, the European Union’s largest art market. The latest figures, as published in the Ministry of Economy & Finance’s 2024 report, show a total of 12 Suspicious Activity Reports (SARs) relating to art and antique dealers and intermediaries from 2022-2024 inclusive. For auction houses the number rises to 426 for the same period. Respectively, those figures account for 0.1% and 2.0% of reports across all sectors. No information is forthcoming about how many of those reports proved valid.
Some have argued that the low figures for the art market are the result of under reporting. Effectively, the logic of this argument is that art-related ML must be high under any circumstances, regardless of reporting, a standpoint that is simply not credible. If the reports are misleading, don’t publish them.
Another issue that has arisen in the UK is that although expert support from compliance companies has made things easier, interventions from enforcement teams working for HMRC have not where enforcement officers have not understood the law properly. Again, anecdotal evidence relates episodes of overreach, intimidation and damaging interference to legitimate business at inappropriate times.
Also challenging is the fact that after more than five years of enforcement in the UK, aspects of what is proving to be a complex regulation are still not clear. If the compliance companies and HMRC are still debating them, what hope have Art Market Participants (AMPs) of complying fully?
What Congress needs to consider
These factors must all be considered in the United States as Congress considers the proposed Art Market Integrity Act.
Some have argued that the art market is not bound by the anti-money laundering and counter-terrorism financing standards set by the Bank Secrecy Act. However, their qualifying transactions are already subject to these standards via the banking process.
The Senate voted down a previous attempt at regulation in 2022. The proposed Enablers Act risked undermining fundamental principles of the rule of law and citizens’ rights, argued the American Bar Association.
Such fears are justified because these rights are already being extensively undermined in relation to the art market by the plethora of bilateral agreements (also known as Memoranda of Understanding) with third countries that effectively give them a veto on cultural property imports that belong to U.S. citizens. Article 1 of the MoU with Egypt, for example, demonstrates this clearly. The seizure and return of items for which no proof of illegality is forthcoming has become commonplace. The reversal of the burden of proof to ‘guilty until proven innocent’ is all but standard in this sphere today. Such arbitrary interference with citizens’ property is in direct contravention of the 5th and 14th Amendments of the U.S. Constitution, as well as Article 17.2 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
Current proposals under the Act are unworkable
Current proposals under the Art Market Integrity Act would be unworkable because they are far too wide in scope. Defining an AMP as “a person engaged in the trade in works of art, including a dealer, advisor, consultant, custodian, gallery, auction house, museum, collector, or any other person who engages as a business as an intermediary in the sale of works of art”, it allows for certain very limited exclusions. The key exclusion is someone who “has not, during the prior year, participated in total transactions valued at $50,000 that involved a work of art”.
To be clear, this is not a threshold of $50,000 for a single work of art, but a total sales value for all artworks sold over a period of 12 months of $50,000. This ‘mom and pop’ level of trade would not have the time and money to pay for compliance, meaning that the new regulation would simply put them out of business.
If Congress is to proceed with the Act, this section must be struck out or the result would be a disaster for ordinary U.S. citizens.
by ADA | Apr 15, 2026 | Views |
Academic and cultural institutions, as well as governments, continue to look down on the art market – it’s unfair and is in no one’s interest
Provenance and Due Diligence have become the critical factors in assessing cultural goods in recent years. Theft, trafficking, unethical acquisition in colonial times, suspected links to money laundering and terrorism financing have all been presented as arguments for tighter controls and reversing the burden of proof so that items and people are deemed ‘guilty’ unless they can demonstrate their innocence.
The ardent pursuit of this ‘solution’ has brought its own problems: an embarrassing dearth of reliable evidence – hence the reversal of the burden of proof (initially under UNIDROIT 1995) – false data and fake news, failure to check facts and sources, overreach that risks breaching human rights and brings other ethical issues. The exploitation of the cultural sphere for soft power diplomacy includes further exploitation by those who wish to harness it for financial gain or political influence. State-backed programmes and institutional interests are where the real power lies: funding and ‘capacity building’ the self-interests at its core.
This is the environment in which the international art market finds itself the useful whipping boy of those who wish to justify their actions and budgets.
For many on the institutional side of the argument, however, the market really is the problem; they see themselves as being in conflict with – and better than – the trade, while positive actions on the part of the market are deemed merely incidental.
A conversation on…Provenance Research and Due Diligence in the Art and Antiquities World: Distinctions, Connections, Synergies, Challenges, held online on April 8 as part of the International Art Market Studies Association Law & the Arts course 2025–2026, attracted more than 140 attendees.
It addressed the increasing relevance of provenance research and the reasons for this, from the social responsibility of institutions, via the Washington Principles relating to Nazi-looted art to a wider moral responsibility to society and history.
Defining the difference between due diligence and provenance research
Attempts to define the difference between provenance research and due diligence were most usefully summarised as the following: due diligence is the checking of provenance to the extent of what a reasonable person should be expected to carry out related to a specific event, such as a sale or acquisition, whereas provenance research is a wider, ongoing investigation into the history, origins and circumstances of an object.
A higher standard of diligence should be expected from art market professionals as they have more knowledge of objects, it was argued. Presumably such a standard would also apply to museum experts for the same reason, but this was not mentioned.
An overwhelming number of attendees to the session work in the public or academic sphere, as curators, provenance researchers attached to institutions or as officials linked to museum organisations. This resulted in a largely uniform perception and opinion.
Despite this being a course staged by the Art Market Studies Association, art market representatives were extremely thin on the ground. None were included as speakers.
This is a chronic issue with much of the debate over ethics, standards and the law relating to the market. A good example came early on, when Sofia Bollo of the Ethnographic museum at the University of Zurich, who also serves on the Chair of the ICOM Italian section, discussed the working group on provenance research at ICOM. Set up in 2023, it includes more than 100 members: anthropologists, archaeologists, art historians, unemployed people, museum and research interest – but apparently no one from the international art market. This means that we have a body proposing a set of stringent rules for a market that it has not consulted and about which it has a limited understanding. While this may be fine for setting common standards among institutions such as museums, it is unfortunate when it is quite clear that for any measures to be effective in the market, they must address the market from a practical standpoint.
A useful summary of post Second World War initiatives addressing ethics and behaviour covered UNESCO (1970), UNIDROIT (1995), and various EU Directives. As market professionals have found, however, States Parties to the UNESCO Convention tend to cherry pick the articles that suit them, which means that most, if not all, have yet to submit essential lists of goods of national importance, and few are keen to offer the compensation they are committed to when reclaiming items from honest purchasers.
This trampling of a long-established moral right by a new and questionable ‘ethical’ standard is the whole cultural heritage debate in microcosm.
Bilateral agreements and the creeping recognition of domestic laws internationally (not all of them reasonable, notably US vs McClain – 1977) is increasingly creating a situation where honest owners are deprived of the valid title to their belongings. This trampling of a long-established moral right by a new and questionable ‘ethical’ standard is the whole cultural heritage debate in microcosm.
The Australian academic and specialist in cultural heritage law, Lyndel Prott, argued for ‘required diligence’ rather than ‘due diligence’, but that would also require very clear, globally adopted parameters that have yet to be defined. She took a realistic approach to historical norms, acknowledging that provenance standards today could not be applied retroactively to purchases of decades ago.
Alyssa Thiel, of the Penn Cultural Heritage Center, one of several attendees who have worked in the Manhattan District Attorney’s Antiquities Trafficking Unit (ATU), also considered historic norms. She noted the pressure on museums to acquire the best pieces at a time when their context was seen as more important than their history of ownership.
An enlightened approach, it is not shared by the head of the ATU, Assistant District Attorney Matthew Bogdanos, who has seized many such items.
Prott also argued that private sellers were now more of a problem than market professionals because the latter were subject to greater regulation, including anti-money laundering laws, and many have professional compliance departments.
It is almost as though anyone outside the market refuses to believe that market professionals can act with anything other than dishonest or dishonourable intent.
Absent from the debate, however, was any recognition that just as museums and other institutions don’t want to find themselves handling illicit material, neither do auction houses or dealers – and for the same reasons. It is almost as though anyone outside the market refuses to believe that market professionals can act with anything other than dishonest or dishonourable intent.
The webinar also set out the list of checks that should be undertaken when carrying out due diligence, from checking stolen art databases and ICOM red lists to requiring sellers to provide written evidence and supporting paperwork or, in their absence, a notarised statement. While much of this is already the norm, how much would it cost to pursue all the avenues set out and how long would it take? If such checks are essential for all transactions, how much of the market would survive for lesser, cheaper objects?
As Daniel Healey, a Provenance Research specialist at Worcester Art Museum, Massachusetts (and another former ATU staffer) noted, the work of provenance research can become very expensive for museums – sometimes they have to travel to check sources. It is a challenge to museums to fund such provenance research and it requires ongoing support, he advised. They have to rely a lot on colleagues in other institutions.
Again, attendees seemed to apply a double standard here: while Healey complained of the lack of time and resources facing museum curators as they tried to assess items coming up for auction – and blamed auction houses for this – no one considered that auction house specialists themselves, and dealers, faced the same challenges. Why should special consideration be given to one set of professionals but not the other?
Export certificates were another consideration. Now vital under the EU import licensing regulations, the fact that they rarely survive in any useful form continues to be overlooked.
Despite this, the UNIDROIT working group on cultural objects with significant gaps in provenance (usually known as Orphan objects) has been able to make some sensible contributions. Due Diligence is not just about compliance, it’s also about reducing costly mistakes and sustaining public trust.
France is attempting to standardise provenance research
A move in France to nationalise how provenance research is carried out includes a mandatory eight-page provenance form for any public acquisition that is already in place. How would this apply to the market? Who would pay for the compliance? Again, no consideration of the practicalities. Nonetheless, as with every forum of this type, a common complaint was the lack of resources and funding to support their work. Yet no one considers that market professionals face identical issues.
Engaging with the art market is an oft-quoted objective to justify what are usually predictable anti-market outcomes of projects and research. In practice, however, such ‘engagement’ is ignored, ineffectual or simply a fig leaf to cover an ideological approach. Until those in the public sector, together with those in the private institutional sector, recognise that the market faces identical challenges to them, it will be hard to move forward. You cannot expect to apply impossible rules to others while giving a free pass to yourself in the same context.
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