My third essay for the IAL’s Diploma in Art Law course is, ‘The case for repatriating the Parthenon Marbles using a trust structure as under international law National Museums have a broad “fiduciary” duty to strive to be better collaborative custodians of world heritage.’ –
I have started to write the essay, which I am aiming to submit along with my second essay in September. The working draft appears on the ‘Mediation of Art & Music Disputes’ page at www.carlislam.co.uk.

Structure & Content:
·       Introduction.
·       Existence of a ‘Collaborative Custodial Duty.’
·       The author’s ‘Fiduciary Theory of Art.’
·       International Law.
·       Distributive Justice.
·       Use of a Trust as a vehicle for collaboration in repatriating the Parthenon Marbles [‘PM’] to Greece.
·       Conclusion.
Extract:
‘The analytical starting point is does a Collaborative Custodial Duty exist? The author submits that theoretical underpinnings for the existence of a Collaborative Custodial Duty include:
(i) The author’s ‘Fiduciary Theory of Art’.
(ii) International Law.
(iii) [Principles of] Distributive Justice. …
[Under International Law] principles of ‘collaborative’ restitution can be derived from at least three sources:
(i)         The precepts underlying International Conventions … ,
(ii)        The Philosophy of International law.
(iii)       Principles & Norms of International Humanitarian Law (‘IHL’) in relation to Cultural Heritage.
Applying doctrinal principles of ‘fiduciary government’ … are states obliged under International Law to act, or should they be obliged to act, as custodians/fiduciaries of cultural property?
In ‘A Fiduciary Theory of Jus Cogens’, Evan J Criddle and Evan-Fox Decent developed a fiduciary theory of jus cogens (i.e. norms that command peremptory authority, superseding conflicting treaties and customs in international law], arguing that, “States must honor peremptory norms as basic safeguards of dignity because they stand in a fiduciary relationship with all persons subject to their power and therefore bear specific duties to guarantee equal security under the rule of law … [and] that this fiduciary model of state sovereignty advances international human rights discourse beyond vague notions of ‘public policy’, ‘international consensus’, and ‘normative hierarchy’ toward a more theoretically defensible and analytically determinate account of peremptory norms.” …
The intersection in International Law between:
(i)         obligations erga omnes; and
(ii)        jus cogens rules,
is a potentially rich source of principles that can be applied in the practice of repatriating cultural property through a process of ‘collaborative’ Cultural Heritage Diplomacy. However, the underlying foundational principles require scholarly formulation, definition and classification.’ …