The recent spate of threats to cultural heritage, including in Iraq, Mali, Nepal, Syria, and Yemen, has led to increased focus on the sources of international cultural heritage law. This edited volume shows that international cultural heritage law is not a discrete and contained body of law, but one whose component parts are drawn from diverse fields of public international law. It shows how cultural heritage law has been shaped by its interaction with other areas of international law, and how it has contributed to international law in turn.

In this volume, scholars and practitioners explore some of the primary points of intersection between international cultural heritage law and public international law. Chapters explore instersections with the law of armed conflict, international and transnational criminal law, international human rights, the international movement, regulation, and restitution of cultural artefacts, and the UN system. The result is a cohesive collection that not only explores many facets of the intersections of cultural heritage law and public international law, but also examines how the regimes operate together and how the relationship between them largely facilitates, but also sometimes hinders, the development of international law governing the protection of cultural heritage.

About the Author:
Anne-Marie Carstens is a Researcher at Georgetown University Law Center, where her research focuses on corollaries in international and domestic law for both cultural heritage and intellectual property protection. She previously served as Visiting Professor of Law at Georgetown Law and taught in Washington and London in the fields of international cultural heritage law, property law, and copyright and international intellectual property law. She holds a DPhil in Law from Oxford University, where her research focused on state obligations to protect cultural property, as well as a JD degree from Georgetown University.

Elizabeth Varner is Museum Director of the US National Coast Guard Museum, an Adjunct Professor at Indiana University Robert H. McKinney School of Law where she teaches Art, Museum and Cultural Heritage Law as well as Entertainment Law, and a neutral (arbitration and mediation). She was formerly executive director of two museums and has previously worked for government agencies assisting with guiding the management and use of over 200 million cultural and scientific objects, working with international and public-private partnership issues, developing policies, addressing legal issues, protecting cultural property, and investigating, prosecuting, and repatriating cultural property. She has a MA from the Smithsonian-Corcoran College of Art + Design and a JD from Tulane University School of Law.