Is There Anything Universal About Universal Museums?

In this second instalment of the 'Reckonings with Europe: Pasts and Present' series, Evelien Campfens, Chika Okeke-Agulu and Dan Hicks reflect on calls for return of cultural artefacts looted under European empire. How does (international) law respond to these calls? Does law even matter—and if so which kind? Who resists return, and why? And what might return mean today?

Select texts and reports discussed:

Felwine Sarr & Bénédicte Savoy, 'The Restitution of African Cultural Heritage. Toward a New Relational Ethics' (French original) (2018)

Association of Art Museum Directors, 'Declaration on the Importance and Value of Universal Museums' (2002)

Dan Hicks, The Brutish Museum: The Benin Bronzes, Colonial Violence and Cultural Restitution (2020)

Evelien Campfens, https://www.boomdenhaag.nl/isbn/9789462362505 (Cross-Border Claims to Cultural Heritage: Property or Heritage?) (2021)