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The Committee for Cultural Policy (CCP) is a public policy research organization, formed in 2009 to address a need for a balanced perspective in international and domestic US policies on cultural property. [1]        The CCP’s goal is the development of cultural policy that protects archaeological sites and monuments worldwide, facilitates uncensored international scholarship, promotes public and scholarly access to US museum collections, transparency in acquisition, and encourages an open, legitimate trade in art and antiquities. The Committee for Cultural Policy’s educational mission is primarily achieved through its website, blog, e-Newsletter, the publication of scholarly analysis and public events that bring legal, art, and cultural property specialists together to discuss the issues affecting the field.

Art News and the e-Newsletter of the Committee for Cultural Policy

The Art News blog of the Committee for Cultural Policy [2] is composed of articles in 10 different categories pertaining to art and cultural property. The categories are Art Market, Changing Laws, Conservation and Preservation, Exhibitions, Museums, Private Collections, Repatriation, Science and Discoveries, War & Civil Unrest, and World War II. The blog is accessed on the website. The e-Newsletter of the Committee for Cultural Policy [3] arrives monthly and summaries the blog entries from the previous month. Subscription to the newsletter is free and can be accessed on the website.

White Paper

The Committee for Cultural Policy commissioned a White Paper entitled “A Proposal to Reform U.S. Law and Policy Relating to the International Exchange of Cultural Property”. Written by William G. Pearlstein, it was published in the Cardozo Arts & Entertainment Law Journal, Volume 32, Issue 2 in 2014.[4] The White Paper summarizes the problems in current U.S. law and policy relating to the international antiquities trade and proposes specific solutions. These include resolving the conflict between Congressional policy and U.S. criminal law and terminating unreasonable import restrictions on cultural objects.

The White Paper identifies key areas for reform and makes six specific proposals that would result in a unified US legal framework and correct the current anti-collecting bias in US law and policy. The remainder of the White Paper is an extended legal analysis of the ways in which US statutory, criminal and customs laws related to cultural policy have developed in opposition to the moderate, balanced viewpoint conceived by Congress in framing the Cultural Property Implementation Act in the early 1980s.[5]

Of critical importance, the White Paper also proposes the creation of a universally accessible, web-based database to promote transparency by museums and private holders, encourage claimants to come forward, create a fair dispute resolution process, and quiet title to good faith purchasers. The proposed database provides the only means to resolve the uncertain status of hundreds of thousands of undocumented “orphan” artifacts created by the Association of Art Museum Director’s “1970 Rule.” These orphans cannot now be donated to, or exhibited or conserved by AAMD museums. Events

In March of 2012 the Committee for Cultural Policy (CCP) sponsored the panel discussion, The Future of the Past: Collecting Ancient Art in the 21st Century [6] hosted by the Asia Society Museum in New York city. Ten leading experts on cultural property law and policy discussed the challenges of the current climate and possibilities for the future. The panel included Naman Ahuja, Kate Fitz Gibbon, Kurt A. Gitter, Arthur Houghton, James Lally, James McAndrew, Julian Raby and Marc Wilson. Vishakha Desai, Asia Society President and CEO, and Melissa Chiu, Asia Society Museum Director and Senior Vice President, Global Arts and Culture programs, moderated the program.

April 10, 2014 Symposium, Reform of U.S. Cultural Property Policy: Accountability, Transparency, and Legal Certainty at Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law in NYC, [7] a joint symposium of the CCP and Arts and Entertainment Law Journal. The three-panel symposium addressed such topics as the conflict between the Convention on Cultural Property Implementation Act of 1983 (CCPIA) and the National Stolen Property Act in terms of U.S. criminal law, neutral interpretation and fair administration of the CCPIA, and the role of museums and collectors, the AAMD 1970 rule, and the prospect for a web-based database to quiet title for objects without provenance. [8]

Moderators were Professor Jeanne Schroeder, Arthur Houghton, and Gary Vikan. Panelists included William Pearlstein, attorneys Andrew Adler, Evan Barr and Michael McCullough and former Senior Special Agent US Customs Service and Department of Homeland Security James McAndrew, Mark Feldman, attorney James Fitzpatrick, professor Lucille Roussin, and former Nelson Atkins Museum director Marc Wilson, professor Jennifer Kreder, and attorney Ronald Spencer. [9]

The Committee for Cultural Policy’s Washington D.C. Roundtable on Reform: US Cultural Property Policy, Law and the Public Interest, was held on April 30, 2014 at the National Press Club. [10]The Roundtable discussed the need to harmonize conflicting laws that create uncertainty for museums and private collectors, the current failure by government agencies setting cultural policy to abide by Congressional mandate, and measures to address the lack of clear title to hundreds of thousands of art objects in circulation and in museum collections.

Museum and legal specialists discussed how best to preserve heritage worldwide while enabling the movement of art between nations and cultures and honoring museums’ commitments to research, publish and exhibit the art of the world. [11]

‘Highlights of the Discussion’ introduction was by Dr. Gary Vikan, Director of the Walters Art Museum in Baltimore, MD 1994-2013, author, educator. Moderators included Timothy Rub, Director and Chief Executive Officer of the Philadelphia Museum of Art, President of the Association of Art Museum Directors.

Panelists included Dr. Timothy Potts, Director, J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, CA Matthew Polk, President, Historic Textile Research Foundation, Inc.; Co-Founder, Polk Audio, Inc.; Collector Michael McCullough, Esq., Michael McCullough, LLC, New York, NY Kate Fitz Gibbon, Esq., Fitz Gibbon Law, Santa Fe, NM Andrew Adler, Esq., Boies, Schiller & Flexner LLP, Fort Lauderdale, FL