The President of the International Institute for the Unification of Private Law (UNIDROIT) may at regular intervals, or at any time at the request of five Contracting States, convene a special committee in order to review the practical operation of this Convention.
Convened by the President of UNIDROIT, in accordance with Article 20 of the Convention, the meeting took place at the UNESCO Headquarters in Paris on Tuesday 19 June 2012, immediately before the Meeting of States Parties to the 1970 UNESCO Convention on the Means of Prohibiting and Preventing the Illicit Import, Export and Transfer of Ownership of Cultural Property (20-21 June 2012) to emphasize the complementarity between the two instruments, as well as the 18th session of the Intergovernmental Committee for Promoting the Return of Cultural Property to its Countries of Origin or its Restitution in case of Illicit Appropriation (22 June 2012).
The meeting provided an opportunity to explain which international claims mechanisms are available for cultural property outside the international instruments so as to better understand the benefits offered by the 1995 Convention mechanisms and to assess the Convention’s impact beyond the number of ratifications/accessions. It also, and indeed especially, gave States a chance to exchange views on their experiences, to compare practices and to discuss any difficulties encountered in implementing the Convention. International experts made presentations to assist States Parties and not Parties to the Convention in their discussions.
- Programme and presentations
- List of Speakers
- Information document of the Secretariat
- Questionnaire on the practical operation of the Convention
- Questionnaire answers from States
- Lyndel V. PROTT, UNESCO and UNIDROIT: a Partnership against Trafficking in Cultural Objects
- Pierre Lalive d’Epinay, Une avancée du droit international: la Convention de Rome d’Unidroit sur les biens culturels volés ou illicitement exportés, Uniform Law Review/Revue de droit uniforme.
- Lyndel V. PROTT, The UNIDROIT Convention on Stolen or Illegally Exported Cultural Objects – Ten Years On, Uniform Law Review/Revue de droit uniforme.