Constituting cultural property as part of the International Law Regime, and its Development

Project Director: Prof. Dr. Peter-Tobias Stoll (International Law)
Research Associates: Ass. jur. Sven Mißling / Philipp Socha

The discussions and negotiations of cultural property in the Intergovernmental Committee of WIPO are closely linked to other policy areas, institutions and regulatory realms. Among others, these include the long-standing efforts to arrive at a form of human rights protection for indigenous peoples, the international cultural policy pursued by UNESCO – the Conventions for the Safeguarding of Intangible Cultural Heritage (2003), developments in international law concerning the environment, and controversies in the World Trade Organization over protecting intellectual heritage. The interactions, and intersections, between these various efforts in international law are the subject of this sub-project. In doing so, what is at issue is a forward-looking analysis of internal compatibility and the linkage in terms of process with other regulatory realms, as well as the development of corresponding methods. The knowledge obtained from individual cases here can be used to create a more general means of regarding the international law regime, one which is characterized by increasing differentiation and a need to coordinate the individual sub-realms that have developed.