By: William McGoughran
States have called for, and negotiated with, the British Museum for decades, hoping it would return their cultural property. However, most of the artifacts that make up this cultural property remain in the halls of the British Museum. The Museum claims that the British Museum Act and its classification as a Universal Museum protect it from responding to such calls for repatriation.
Given the British Museum’s entrenchment in these arguments, this Note recognizes the inherent limitations of voluntary repatriation. Instead, it advocates for recognizing a culture’s property interest in an object if it originated in that culture and extending a duty of care from the British Museum to them. This Note argues that if the United Kingdom’s domestic court system recognizes such a property interest and duty of care, it would go a long way toward affording such indigenous groups more autonomy over their cultural property. As evidence mounts of the British Museum’s negligent handling of artifacts, should an indigenous group collect substantial evidence of negligence toward their cultural property, recognizing a property interest and duty of care will provide cultures with an avenue to bring a negligence claim against the British Museum. In this way, when indigenous groups show their cultural property has been negligently handled, the court can provide the remedy that best suits them—either monetary damages or restitution of property.