Daily Kathimerini reports that the Greek Radical Left Coalition (SYRIZA) government must decide whether it wants to take legal recourse for the return of the Parthenon Marbles from the British Museum. A confidential memo sent to the Ministry of Culture by three global lawyers of the Doughty Street Chambers encourages Greece to take the UK to court over the sculptures.
London-based lawyers Amal Alamuddin, Geoffrey Robertson and Norman Palmer--who had visited Athens in October--sent a 150-page memo with three considerations that the government needs to mull over before taking action. Greece needs to bear in mind what court of law should address the issue, five different approaches that can be taken, the cost of the legal proceedings and the chances of success. The rapport stresses that legal action must be taken now or the opportunity to do so might be lost due to future legal obstacles. The lawyers want the Greek authorities to contact the British government and British Museum and notify them of their legal claim. Should their bid for the return of the marbles be ignored, then legal action will officially be taken.
The lawyers’ advice includes the statement: 'The British adhere to international law… The Greek government has never taken advantage of this Achilles’ heel'. The report suggests that the Strasbourg court of Human Rights would be favourable at examining the case under the European Convention on Human Rights though a possible obstacle is the fact that Conservatives have pledged to change the law so that Strasbourg’s rulings are no longer binding.
As a response, Alternate Minister for Culture Nikos Xydakis said in an interview on Wednesday that diplomacy rather than litigation will help Greece win its claim for the return of the Parthenon Marbles from the British Museum. Greece has thus ruled out taking legal action against the UK to reclaim the Elgin Marbles from the British Museum.
"On the one hand, you can’t file a suit over any issue, and, on the other, the outcome in international courts is never certain. The way to winning back the Marbles is diplomatic and political."
He said he believed attitudes to the future of the Marbles were slowly changing and would favour Greece in a diplomatic approach. I understand the course taken--can respect it, even--it's still a blow to those who want to see the marbles restored to Greece. How are you taking the news?
It's pretty much what I thought was going to happen, although I thought it would happen a lot later, to be honest.
ReplyDeleteWhatever you think about the moral case for the British Museum giving the Marbles to the Acropolis Museum, there was almost no legal case whatsoever and the fact that the ICC (almost exclusively used for prosecuting war criminals) was suggested shows how desperate it was all getting on the legal side.
So all Greece could ever possibly do to get the Marbles was:
1) Persuade the BM to either share them with or give them to the AM
2) Try to get people to apply so much pressure around the world that the BM felt obliged to give them the Marbles
But if they'd ever taken the case to court, chances are they would have lost, after which it would have been a lot harder to get both 1) and 2) to work, since there's nothing quite like a court case to stop the other party negotiating with you and a verdict against you tends to make your argument look a whole lot weaker. That's why, despite the repatriation programme being launched in the early 80s, Greece has never tried taking the BM to court. If they'd had a case they thought they could win - the might of a whole state against that of one museum, remember - they'd have done it some time in the past 30-odd years.
The "use diplomatic solutions" strategy that the Greek government is now pursuing is basically an admission they're abandoning attempts for the near future. They might be hoping that the change of director at the BM will give them an opportunity to change direction as well; they might even decide to acknowledge the BM's legal ownership of the Marbles and agree some kind of time-share scheme; or they might just be wanting to spend their money on something else while they have so little of it.
As for me, I'm not fussed. I go to Athens and the Acropolis Museum every year and have done for the past four years; I'm a member of the British Museum and have seen the Marbles four times in the past year and will be going again some time in the next month. Wherever they end up, I'll see them, so personally, I don't care who has them.
So basically whatevs!