International Mechanism Of The Convention, The Return Of Cultural Property

Cultural property is a symbol of a country or nation, but also an important way for the country to inherit their traditional property. However, for centuries, since a large number of cultural properties have exiled out of the country because of the war, colonization, illegal transportation and other ways, the world paid more and more attention to the protection of the cultural properties. It's recorded by the Heritage Society of China that we lost thousands of millions of cultural properties. The lost cultural properties were involved many of the countries, in which part of the lost was robbed during the wars while the other part was illegally smuggle out of the country. In order to protect the cultural properties better, Chinese government joined, approved or signed several international conventions in relation to cultural property. In the mean time, according to the specific situation, China has established a basic legal framework regarding the protection and return of the cultural properties.Recently, many of the countries accepted the UNESCO Convention in 1970, "On Prohibiting and Preventing the Illicit Import, Export and Transfer of Cultural Property Convention on the Means of Ownership", a trend of launching suits or actions to return the cultural properties is more and more popular. Not long ago, several Chinese and civil institutions of China went abroad to conduct actions in relation to cultural properties.Whether the existing mechanism under the International Convention, or recovered through legal ways, or returned via individuals, we have to admit, each means or methods would be born with defects. Despite that the international society has established a legal framework regarding the return of the cultural properties, however, due to the specific characters of the international treaties, the remaining legal framework cannot protect the lost cultural properties sufficiently. Moreover, since the protection and return of the cultural property involved the private and conflict laws, as the owner of the cultural properties, it can choose to return the properties through diplomatic way or litigation, and litigation is bound to involve application of law issues.Therefore, the article describes and analyzes not only the current mechanisms of return and protection of cultural property, but also the issues of conflict laws. The first chapter briefly describes the basic theory of the return of cultural property, the description starts from the conception of the cultural property. It then introduces the background and situation in relation to the protection and return of the cultural property, together with introducing several international treaties in relation to cultural properties. In the meantime, the author also describes the basic legal relationship in relation the return and protection of the cultural properties to clarify the roles and actions of multiple parties. The author introduces the basic framework of the international treaties in the second chapter, including the applicable scope, the return institution and dispute resolution. The author intends to introduce the legal framework of the treaties. Then the author presents the domestic laws and regulations of the main countries to enforce the international treaties, including the USA, British, Japan and Switzerland. Furthermore, the author describes the problems that the international treaties faced during their applications in the fourth chapter. Finally, it is the fifth chapter, the author describes the current legal framework of China and gives some suggestions to the return of the cultural properties lost abroad.