Legal Approaches For Settling The Disputes On Foreign-related Returning Cultural Relics

Cultural relics are the kinds that left over in the process of human developmentand relevant to material culture and spiritual culture. In the modern world, it becomesthe common requirements for all countries of international community to maintain thenational cultural identity and protect the relics created by human beings. But due to somany reasons of history and reality, in many countries of the world, cultural treasuresthat handed down for thousands of years after suffering crazy plunder, theft andsmuggling, are still lost overseas. It leads to a sharp rise of dispute over the return offoreign relics and showing complex features. It also attracts attentions of countries allover the world to the question of solving dispute over the return of foreign culturalrelics as early as the middle of the Twentieth Century. How to recover the loss offoreign relics, is the urgent problem for us at the moment. But the concerned matter insolving this issue is so wide, includes not only international legal issues such asinternational conventions, international custom and the conflict of national laws, butmany other factors relevant to national power, diplomacy, cultural conflict and so on,which is precisely the difficulty in solving the problem of relics recourse. Over theyears, through continuous exploration and summary in cultural relics recourse, allcountries gradually form some conventions and judicial experience which is generallyrecognized by the international community and of practical significance. These effortsall affect the selection path of solving dispute over the return of foreign cultural relicsin the world today.This article will take dispute over the return of foreign cultural relics as thecenter, discussing the different dispute resolution path in the hope that through thesestudies we can provide some reference for the settlement of the dispute over thereturn of foreign cultural relics.The text is divided into four parts, exploring legal path to solve the dispute over the return of foreign cultural relics, from the perspectives of international legislation,the foreign proceedings and foreign arbitration. First of all, the text will interpret themajor international conventions involved in the protection of cultural relics and thedispute of return, analyze the function and defect of international conventions insolving dispute over the return of foreign cultural relics, and make relatedrecommendations as many as possible. Secondly, this essay will select two typicalproblems of the most controversial in dispute litigation of the return of foreigncultural relics--application of law and limitation in law. Through comparative studyon relevant national legislation and jurisprudence, making a theoretical induction ofcomplex legal problems that presented in the dispute litigation of the return of foreigncultural relics, this essay aims to provide a reference for the original owners to claimtheir cultural relics lost overseas through litigation. Third, in view of the complexproblems faced by current dispute resolution path, the appeal of the internationalcommunity to take arbitration to resolve such disputes would be a useful attempt. Thetext tries to use the international community’s proposing of arbitration-solving path asthe starting point, analyzes its advantages and shortcomings, and then accordinglydescribes the constructing of arbitration institutions for the dispute over the return offoreign cultural relics. Finally, the text will focus on the theme of recourse of outsidecultural relics, explore the revelation for China’s recourse of outside illegal-lostcultural relics from the international community’s solution of the dispute over thereturn of foreign cultural relics. The text will first conduct a brief analysis of thestatus of China’s looted relics, then make specific recommendations for China’srecourse of outside looted relics.This article will use the method of comparative studies and empirical analysis,from the perspective of international law, through studying international conventions,national laws and judicial practice, to draw the solution path for the return of theforeign cultural relics in the international community. At the same time, the text willexpound the legislative mechanism and practice on the issue of relics recourse, anduse the enumerate analysis to discuss the legislation and related cases of somecountries in relics recourse.The study of this text is intended to analyze the diversity and complexity of the dispute over the return of foreign cultural relics; study the legal path of dispute overthe return of foreign cultural relics; explore specific recommendations for arbitrationto solve the dispute over the return of foreign cultural relics; try to provide usefulreference for China’s recourse of outside looted relics.Considering the current problem of China’s recourse of looted relics, whether thetheory of legislation and justice or the study of practice, is still relatively weak. I hopethis article can also provide useful suggestions for our recourse of outside lootedrelics.