The UNESCO Convention
of November 14, 1970
144
Not a Law for Criminal Prosecution
About the only thing they weren’t charged with
was the murder of the dinosaurs, which we can
only assume they were disqualifi ed from being
suspected of since the creatures in question died
some sixty-fi ve million years ago.
The dumbfounded presumed culprits incredulously
repeated that they had been actively buying
and selling fossils “with invoices” for as many
years as they had been in business; that they had
long imported and exported them; that they had
been suppliers to many major museums; that dozens
of fossil fairs were held every year not only in
France but all over Europe, the United States, and
elsewhere in the world; that comparable fossils
were regularly and continued to be offered for sale
at auctions; and that there was, to their knowledge,
nothing about those activities that was prohibited.
Nonetheless, in the eyes of French customs offi -
cials and the judge handling the case, the imporof
the French high court’s ruling, even though the
case in point relates to the import of fossils and not
cultural objects.
Just as Guy de Maupassant’s novel Pierre et Jean
does, this legal tragedy begins in Le Havre. On a
beautiful August morning in 2013, customs agents
in that Norman port, which is located on the right
bank of the Seine’s estuary and is France’s largest
port for container ships, proceeded to inspect a
vessel’s cargo. Upon unloading it, they noted an
irregularity in the declaration for a container containing
a large number of prehistoric fossils from
South America. Instead of issuing a ticket and imposing
a fi ne as they normally would, they opted to
execute multiple searches of the physical premises
of the French company to which the shipment was
addressed.
Since the function of the business in question
was obvious and clearly stated to be commer-
cial trade in fossils—and many of its wares were
even on exhibit in French museums—no one
should have been particularly surprised that dinosaur,
fish, and reptile skeletons from all over
the world were “discovered” at its place of business.
Nevertheless, more than 200 fossils were
seized.
An offi cial investigation was opened and, after
having been in custody for four days, the owners
of the fossil importing business were accused of
nothing less than “participating by association
with miscreants in preparation for committing
a crime punishable by ten years’ imprisonment,
the detention of national treasures and cultural
goods without valid authorizing documentation,
the import as an illegal organized group
of prohibited merchandise without customs
declarations, and organized theft, as well as the
reception and possession of stolen goods.”
With its decision of September 12,
2018, the criminal division of the French Court
of Appeals upheld the principle that the “UNESCO
Convention of November 14, 1970, cannot
in itself be used to impose a criminal penalty.”
This obvious fact, understood by any informed legal
professional and indeed by anyone who has actually
gone to the trouble of reading the 1970 Convention
in question, may well have needed to be
affi rmed by the French high courts since so many
prosecutors have erroneously based their cases on
its principles, despite the fact that they are not directly
applicable in the sovereign laws of nations
(Tribal Art, no. 77, pp. 140–144).
Since the 1970 UNESCO Convention concerns
“the measures needed to prohibit and prevent
the illicit import, export, and transfer of ownership
of cultural property” in the broadest sense,
we thought it worthwhile to give an account here
ART + law
By Yves-Bernard Debie