Statement by the President of ICOM on current legal actions
against museums for the return of illegally exported culturalproperty (especially Italy Vs the J Paul Getty Museum)

Clearly ICOM supports the right of the Italian government to take appropriate legal action
against museums for the return of illegally exported cultural property. ICOM takes theseand related matters involving illegal acquisition of looted antiquities by museums in theUnited States and other countries very seriously. As the principal international body formuseum standards and principles of professional conduct for the museum profession
world-wide, ICOM is bound to appraise appropriate actions that should be taken in
response to such serious violations of the ICOM Code of Ethics for Museums.
It is ICOM's policy to support governments pursuing credible claims through nationalcourts or international actions (whether by formal appeal or legal prosecution) seeking
restitution of illicitly appropriated cultural property. While it is also ICOM's general policy
to refrain from comment on specific cases in the process of being judged by a court,ICOM, and in particular, the ICOM Ethics Committee, continues and will continue to follow
closely the information arising from Italian government actions in cases involving theGetty or other museums: to reaffirm ICOM's support of legal action by governments withcredible, substantially documented claims concerning cultural property.
Although many actions by the Italian state are still ongoing (and technically sub judice),
there is now a huge amount of collective evidence in the public domain of malpractice bymajor museums in acquiring antiquities without provenance - evidence yielded in yearsof effort by the special antiquities and heritage squad of the Carabinieri and associatedlegal actions (some already successful, some still in process), such that some publicstatement by ICOM is now due.
The ICOM Ethics Committee considers it timely for ICOM to reaffirm its position on the'Ethics of Acquisition' (returning to the core of where ICOM began its public work on
museum ethics). ICOM still affirms that document of 1970 - which can be found at thefollowing website address: http://icom.museum/acquisition.html(see also : http://www.unesco.org/culture/laws/1970/html_eng/page1.shtml )It is important to reiterate what ICOM expects all museums to uphold, especially incombating the appallingly extensive expansion of illicit trafficking in recent years, as
thoroughly disclosed in a large number of actions being undertaking by various
governments currently (of Italy, Greece, etc.) and by other parties.
It should be emphasized that the ICOM Code of Ethics for Museums, to which allindividual and institutional members are bound, reaches beyond a lowest-level legal
compliance framework of address to disputed ownership of cultural property from within
the provisions of some national laws. Noting that ethical standards for the museum
profession invoke a higher standard of due diligence than may be required under
differing legal jurisdictions, ICOM prescribes the following minimal standards of good
professional conduct, in stating, within its Code, these principles:
2.2 > Valid Title
No object or specimen should be acquired by purchase, gift, loan, bequest, or exchange
unless the acquiring museum is satisfied that a valid title is held. Evidence of lawful
ownership in a country is not necessarily valid title.

2.3 > Provenance and Due Diligence
Every effort must be made before acquisition to ensure that any object or specimen
offered for purchase, gift, loan, bequest, or exchange has not been illegally obtained, in,or exported from its country of origin or any intermediate country in which it might havebeen owned legally (including the museum's own country). Due diligence in this regard
should establish the full history of the item since discovery or production.
(ICOM Code of Ethics for Museums (revised 2004; published ICOM, Paris, 2006)
The ICOM Code is available in full on ICOM's Website, in HTML & PDF formats
at: http://icom.museum/ethics.html
It is clear that the curbing of illicit trafficking is directly dependent on the ethicalprinciples and sanctions against acquisition of unprovenanced material applied bymuseums (as leading standards-setting institutions and price-controlling buyers in the art
market internationally). The role of museums and their influence on illicit trafficking is
not at all a marginal issue, as some commentators have sought to argue for many years.
ICOM also takes this opportunity to emphasize the importance of affirming and advancing
broader work being undertaken on the retrospective provenancing of collections, toensure that looted works are returned to rightful owners - as the increased effort tolocate and return Holocaust-looted works has disclosed to be a burning issue ofretrospective 'due diligence' required in recent years.
At the same time, ICOM does not simply focus on litigious actions or solutions-of-lastresort in addressing contending claims as to ownership of cultural property or othermaterial held by museums. ICOM (especially with the assistance of its Legal AffairsCommittee) has taken a keen interest recently in encouraging many opportunities bymuseums for mediation or informal negotiation of competing claims as to culturalproperty ownership and return, in addition to exploring new kinds of constructive
relationships opening up between institutions and many parties (including sourcecommunities) for better care and management of collections and protection of heritage.
With regard to more constructive possibilities of resolving actual or potential culturalproperty disputes, ICOM again directs attention to its formal Statement of January 2006
(in English, French and Spanish) concerning mediation:
Statement by the President of ICOM Alissandra Cummins Promoting the use of mediationin resolution of disputes over the ownership of objects in Museum Collections
at: http://icom.museum/statement_mediation_eng.html
Alissandra Cummins,President, International Council of Museums (ICOM)
December 2006