23 May 2020, Athens, Greece

Greece's  Minister of Culture and Sport,  Lina Mendoni restated the long-standing request for the British Museum to return the Parthenon Marbles, ahead of the 11th anniversary of the Acropolis Museum.

The British Museum in London continues to refuse to return the Parthenon Marbles. The 2,500-year-old sculptures were forcibly removed from the Parthenon, by British diplomat Lord Elgin in the early 19th century when Greece was under Ottoman Turkish rule.

Prior to the opening of the Acropolis Museum on 20 June 2009,  the British Museum had argued that Greece had 'no where to display' the Parthenn Marbles. Now nearly 11 years since the purpose-built Acropolis Museum was opened  to house the antiquities from the Acropolis, the British Museum continues to argue that the sculptures in London are best viewed in London as they can be seen in the context of world cultures.

On 24 January 2019, Ioannis Andritsopoulos, Ta Nea's UK correspondent , interviewed British Mumseum Director, Hartwig Fischer who said: "since the beginning of the 19th century, the monument’s history is enriched by the fact that some (parts of it) are in Athens and some are in London where six million people see them every year. In each of these two locations they highlight different aspects of an incredibly rich, layered and complex history."

"People go to some places to encounter cultural heritage that was created for that site. They go to other places to see cultural heritage which has been moved and offers a different way to engage with that heritage. The British Museum is such a place, it offers opportunities to engage with the objects differently and ask different questions because they are placed in a new context.We should cherish that opportunity." Concluded Dr Fischer.

On Sunday 23 February 2020,  the then Deputy Editor of the Sunday Times, Sarah Baxter wrote her modest proposal for the reunification of the Parthenon Marbles, aptly entitled: "The sane move is to give Greece back its Elgin marbles".

The first 'modet proposal' was written by Christopher Hitchens (pages 104 to 106) in the third edition of 'The Parthenon, The Case for Reunification'published by Verso in May 2008 and launched at Chatham House, London by the BCRPM. The second was written by Stephen Fry in 2011, you can read that heretoo.

Dr Fischer responded to Sarah Baxter's article with a letter to the Sunday Times, which was publish Sunday 01 March 2020:

Greeks should be glad we have the marbles

Sarah Baxter’s column on the Parthenon sculptures asks us to imagine how we would feel if Big Ben had been transplanted to Athens (“The sane move is to give Greece back its marbles”, Comment, last week). This is to ignore the many buildings and artworks that have been reused, reshaped and often moved across borders, such as Duccio’s altarpiece the Maesta, elements of which have been removed from Siena cathedral and are held in museums across Europe and America.

The Parthenon sculptures are fragments of a lost whole that cannot be put back together. Only about 50% of the original sculptures survive from antiquity. The Parthenon has become a European monument precisely because its sculptures can be seen not only in Athens but in London and other European cities. The public benefit of this distribution and what it means for our shared cultural inheritance is self-evident, and something to celebrate.

Minister of Culture for Greece, Dr Lina Mendoni  responded by saying that Dr Fischer's letter was as “unfortunate, if not outright unacceptable.” To read one of the article's quoting Dr Mendoni, follow the link here.

As expected, this was not well received by most, not just in the UK but elsewhere too. Yannis Andritsopoulos, London Correspondent for Ta Nea, Greece's daily newspaper, wrote an article following on from Dr Fischer's letter to the Sunday Times, quoting a number of BCRPM members including Janet Suzman, Alex Benakis, Dr Peter Thonemann and Professor John Tasioulas.

Dr Mendoni insists that “it is time for the British Museum to reconsider its stance ahead of the Acropolis Museum’s next birthday, which is on 20 June 2020. Does it want to be a museum that meets and will continue to meet modern requirements and speak to the soul of the people, or will it remain a colonial museum which intends to hold treasures of world cultural heritage that do not belong to it?” Smilar words were used by Dame Janet Suzman during her participation in the Cambridge Union debate on 25 April 2019. You can read Janet's speech here.

Minister Mendoni urged the International Committees (IARPS) to continue to support this long standing request as they also continue to support the Greek government in their quest for the return of the Parthenon Marbles.

Professor John Tasioulas, Director of the Yeoh Tiong Lay Centre for Politics, Philosophy and Law, King's College London is a BCRPM member and was one of two speakers at a panel discussion held at Kings College London on 06 February 2020.

To read about this panel discussion, please visit our Past Events section. 

Professor John Tasioulas' paper covered key points in international law as he also made his own strong for reunite the Parthenon Marbles on moral grounds.

In concluding, Professor Tasioulas said that "the key to the return of the Parthenon marbles is the recognition that the UK stands to gain a tremendous amount by relinquishing them. But to achieve those gains – the gains of acting and being seen to act in accordance with one’s deepest values – it must give them up freely, generously, and in the spirit of friendship, not one darkened by the shadow of legal obligation."

To read Professor John Tasioulas' paper in full  please visit our Past Events section and click on the Panel Discussion at Kings College London: "Who Owns History?

Thursday, 6 February 2020 from 18:00 to 20:00

SW1.18, Somerset House East Wing
The Dickson Poon School of Law, King's College London
Strand
London WC2R 2LS
United Kingdom

WHO OWNS HISTORY?  A panel Discussion at The Dickson Poon School of Law, King's College London

Description
The panel will feature a discussion of Geoffrey Robertson's recently published book, "Who Owns History? Elgin's Loot and the Case for Returning Plundered Treasure" (Biteback Publishing, 2019).

The biggest question in the world of art and culture concerns the return of property taken without consent. Throughout history, conquerors or colonial masters have taken artefacts from subjugated peoples, who now want them returned from museums and private collections in Europe and the USA.

The controversy rages on over the 'Elgin Marbles', and has been given immediacy by figures such as France's President Macron, who says he will order French museums to return hundreds of artworks acquired by force or fraud in Africa, and by British opposition leader Jeremy Corbyn, who has pledged that a Labour government would return the 'Elgin Marbles' to Greece. Elsewhere, there is a debate in Belgium about whether the Africa Museum, newly opened with 120,000 items acquired mainly by armed forces in the Congo, should close.
Although there is an international convention dated 1970 that deals with the restoration of artefacts stolen since that time, there is no agreement on the rules of law or ethics which should govern the fate of objects forcefully or lawlessly acquired in previous centuries.
Who Owns History? delves into the crucial debate over the ;Elgin Marbles', but also offers a system for the return of cultural property based on human rights law principles that are being developed by the courts. It is not a legal text, but rather an examination of how the past can be experienced by everyone, as well as by the people of the country of origin.

Speaker:
Mr Geoffrey Robertson QC
Mr Robertson is founder and joint head of Doughty Street Chambers. He has had a distinguished career as a trial and appellate counsel, an international judge, and author of leading textbooks. He has argued many landmark cases in media, constitutional and criminal law, in the European Court of Justice; the European Court of Human Rights; the Supreme Court (House of Lords and Privy Council); the UN War Crimes courts; the World Bank’s International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID) and in the highest courts of many commonwealth countries.

Geoffrey has, as a jury advocate, appeared in many criminal trials at the Old Bailey and libel trials in the High Court. He has appeared in several hundred reported cases in the Court of Appeal (both civil and criminal divisions) and in judicial reviews in the High Court, and in subsequent appeals. He has a large advisory practice, for clients including governments, media corporations, NGO’s and local councils.

Commentators:
Professor Edith Hall, Department of Classics, King's College London

Since being awarded the Hellenic Foundation Prize for her Oxford doctorate (1988), Edith has held posts at Cambridge, Oxford, Durham and London Universities. She has published twenty books. She is Co-Founder and Consultant Director of the Archive of Performances of Greek & Roman Drama at Oxford and Chairman of the Gilbert Murray Trust. She has won funding for research from the AHRB, the AHRC, the Leverhulme Trust, the British Academy, the Center for Hellenic Studies in Washington, and has just been awarded a Humboldt Research Prize. She appears regularly on BBC Radio, and has acted as consultant to professional productions of ancient drama at the Royal Shakespeare Company, the National Theatre, Northern Broadsides, Theaterkombinat and other professional companies.

Professor John Tasioulas, Director of the Yeoh Tiong Lay Centre for Politics, Philosophy and Law, King's College London

Professor John Tasioulas joined The Dickson Poon School of Law in September, 2014 as the inaugural Chair of Politics, Philosophy & Law and Director of the Yeoh Tiong Lay Centre for Politics, Philosophy & Law. He was previously Reader in Moral and Legal Philosophy at the University of Oxford, where he taught from 1998-2010, and Quain Professor of Jurisprudence at University College London from 2011-2014. Professor Tasioulas is an Honorary Professorial Fellow at Melbourne Law School, a Distinguished Research Fellow of the Oxford Uehiro Centre for Practical Ethics, an Emeritus Fellow of Corpus Christi College, Oxford and a member of the Academia Europaea. He has held visiting appointments at the Australian National University, the University of Chicago, Harvard University, and the University of Melbourne, and has acted as a consultant on human rights to the World Bank. He has written extensively on topics such as human rights, crime and punishment, the rule of law, the ethics of Artificial Intelligence, and the theory of international law, including the nature of customary international law, jus cogens norms, and minimum core obligations.

To read Professor John Tasioulas' response during the discussion please see here.

Chair:
Professor Philippa Webb, Dickson Poon School of Law, King's College London

Philippa Webb is Professor of Public International Law. She joined The Dickson Poon School of Law in 2012 after a decade in international legal practice. She was previously visiting Assistant Professor in the Advanced LLM Programme at Leiden University (2009-2011). She has been Visiting Professor at Université Paris X Nanterre, ESADE Law School and Pepperdine University’s London programme. Professor Webb holds a doctorate (JSD) and an LLM from Yale Law School. She obtained the University Medal in her LLB and the University Medal and First Class Honours in her BA (Asian Studies), both of which were awarded by the University of New South Wales in Australia. Professor Webb has extensive experience in international courts and tribunals. She served as the Special Assistant and Legal Officer to Judge Rosalyn Higgins during her Presidency of the International Court of Justice (2006-2009) and, prior to that, as the Judicial Clerk to Judges Higgins and Owada (2004-2005). She was the Associate Legal Adviser to Prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo at the International Criminal Court (2005-2006).