The Illicit Trade in Cultural Objects

Abstract

Trying to explain why it has taken so long, Arianna Visconti traces the relatively recent evolution of attempts to suppress the trafficking in cultural objects towards criminalization. She sets out how the halting attempts to criminalize in the failed Council of Europe’s Delphi Convention have reached only potential fruition in the latest pure criminal law treaty, the Council of Europe’s 2017 Nicosia Convention, and questions whether criminalization really is the solution.