International Colloquium "Archaeological Heritage and its Law - Legal, Ethical and Cultural Issues" Tuesday 9 and Wednesday 10 October 2012 - Musée du Quai Branly (Claude Levi-Strauss Theatre)

National legislation and regulations applicable to archaeological property:
Furniture and Building Remnants – presents a great complexity that
many questions. It results in particular from the peculiarity of the
ownership of movable remains: there are four different ownership regimes,
the owner of the land, the State and the inventor of the
discovered, depending on whether the assets are uncovered as part of a
preventive search, an authorized search operation, an intervention decision
or on the occasion of a chance discovery. A fifth property regime is
specific to archaeological remains from the maritime public domain.

The property regime for remnants of real estate, reformed in 2001, does not depend
the circumstances of the discovery but reveals increasing difficulties
in its implementation.

Beyond property issues alone, archaeological remains and their study
are subject to a plurality of legal norms, not specific to this area and
relating in particular to the circulation of cultural goods, public property, the
protection of heritage, access to public data and property
intellectual property. However, the specificity of these goods – characterized primarily by their
scientific and heritage value while sometimes having market value
important – is not always satisfactorily taken into account by this corpus
standards. The comparative analysis of the various European legislations tends to
demonstrate that these difficulties have already been corrected by several States.

At the same time, some of the objectives related to scientific research, conservation and
the development of this heritage are not at all apprehended by the law.

This symposium, organized by the Ministry of Culture and Communication (Directorate
Heritage Branch – Archaeology Branch), the Centre d'études sur la
international legal cooperation (CECOJI-CNRS), and the musée du quai Branly les 9
and 10 October 2012, will provide an opportunity to examine the contours of this legal corpus and
to assess it in terms of the specificity of archaeological properties.