Article on the Trade in Illicit Art and Antiquities and the Law

The Trafficking Culture website has another dowloadable article worth looking at, this one by a researcher at Leicester (though it has a few problems with the OCR):

Ulph, J. (2011) ‘The Impact of the Criminal Law and Money Laundering Measures Upon the Illicit Trade in Art and Antiquities’, Art Antiquity and Law XVI (1), 39-52.   http://traffickingculture.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/2011-Art-Antiquity-and-Law-Ulph-1.pdf

This concentrates on the English criminal legislation, and suggests that over the next decade money laundering measures will become one of the most powerful and flexible weapons in tackling this trade both in this country and overseas. But:

The article argues that one of the most important steps which any nation can take to combat the illicit trade is to ensure that their domestic law provides clear rules in relation to ownership of undiscovered antiquities.

Of course that is precisely what the UK lacks. Anyone can have anything in their home, and if its from a dodgy source, all they have to do is lie or say "don't know" and "they can't touch you for it". The 'Glasgow Fourth' provided for some kind of documentation of transfer of ownership of individual items from specific locations from the landowner to the finder. Obviously if the illicit antiquities are to be separated from those of legitimate provenance, the possession of this kind of documentation needs to be enforced.