European Court upholds Italy's Right to seize Prized Greek Bronze from Getty Museum

The statue, which had been allegedly illegally purchased by the J. Paul Getty Trust, is currently housed at the Getty Villa Museum in Malibu (California, United States of America). The Italian authorities acted with the purpose of recovering an unlawfully exported piece of cultural heritage.

The Court reiterated that the protection of a country’s cultural and artistic heritage was a legitimate aim for the purposes of the Convention. It furthermore noted that several international instruments stressed the importance of protecting cultural goods from unlawful exportation, such as the 1970 UNESCO Convention on the Means of Prohibiting and Preventing the Illicit Import, Export and Transfer of Ownership of Cultural Property, the 1995 UNIDROIT Convention on Stolen or Illegally Exported Cultural Objects, Directive 2014/60/EU on the return of cultural objects unlawfully removed from the territory of a Member State, and Regulation 116/2009/EC on the export of cultural goods. As to the protection afforded by the Convention, the Court considered that that the legitimacy under of State measures aimed at protecting cultural heritage against unlawful exportation from the country of origin, or at ensuring its recovery and return therein in cases where the unlawful act had nonetheless taken place, in both cases with a view to facilitating in the most effective way wide public access to works of art, could not be called into question.

The Court further held that owing, in particular, to the Getty Trust’s negligence or bad faith in purchasing the statue despite being aware of the claims of the Italian State and their efforts to recover it, the confiscation order had been proportionate to the aim of ensuring the return of an object that was part of Italy’s cultural heritage.