We touched on this topic briefly in the Collection Management Policy section but it's worth spending some time learning more about the serious ethical issues that museums must confront. Certain types of collections present specific issues because of applicable legal and ethical standards. Collecting units that acquire, hold, or manage collections of these types must take these legal and ethical issues into account, including incorporating appropriate standards in the collection management policy.
Legal & Ethical Issues -- Native American and Native Hawaiian Human Remains Objects
The Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA) is a federal law passed in 1990 that provides a process for museums and federal agencies to return certain Native American cultural items—human remains, funerary objects, sacred objects or objects of cultural patrimony—to lineal descendants and culturally affiliated Indian tribes and Native Hawaiian organizations.
Many museums have sacred objects in them that need to be returned or handled in a particular way. This act provides a process for identifying cultural items in their collections and returning them to lineal descendants.
Legal & Ethical Issues -- Cultural Property
The repudiation of the illicit traffic in art and cultural objects that contributes to the despoliation of museums and monuments and the irreparable loss to science and humanity of archaeological remains. Objects and specimens that have been stolen, unscientifically gathered or excavated, or unethically acquired should not be made part of the museum collection.
In 1970 an international treaty was signed at the UNESCO Convention on the means of prohibiting and preventing the illicit import, export and transport of ownership of Cultural Property.
Legal & Ethical Issues -- Biological Material
Collecting activities must be undertaken with sensitivity to continued protection of biological diversity and in compliance with applicable laws protecting animal and plant species, especially those that are threatened or endangered.
In the 1970's an international agreement originated that now includes 169 nations that have signed on to help protect more than 30,000 species of plants and animals.
Legal & Ethical Issues -- Unlawful Appropriation of Objects during the Nazi Era
Between 1933 and 1945, the Nazi Regime caused the unlawful appropriation of millions of art objects and other cultural property from their rightful owners, including private citizens; victims of the Holocaust; public and private museums and galleries; and religious, educational, and other institutions.
The American Alliance of Museums (the Alliance), and the International Council of Museums (ICOM) formed a joint working group in 1999 to study issues of cultural property and have published reports on how museums can (1) identify all objects in their collections that were created before 1946 and acquired by the museum after 1932, that underwent a change of ownership between 1932 and 1946, and that were or might reasonably be thought to have been in continental Europe between those dates (hereafter, “covered objects”); (2) make currently available object and provenance (history of ownership) information on those objects accessible; and (3) give priority to continuing provenance research as resources allow.
There are several databases that list stolen cultural property.
The FBI National Stolen Art File (NSAF)
Interpol Stolen Works Art Database
Select one of the below articles or videos and discuss in the Google Classroom. Please feel free to discuss another ethical or legal topic not listed you would like to cover instead.
Bible Museum, Admitting Mistakes, Tries to Convert Its Critics. April 5, 2020.
To Manage Crisis, Will Bay Area Museums Sell Their Art? May 15, 2020.
Baltimore Museum of Art will only buy women's art in 2020 December 2019.
NPR, Hobby Lobby's Illegal Antiquities Shed Light On A Lost, Looted Ancient City In Iraq, June 28, 2018 (audio)
Smithsonian Magazine, Kennewick Man Finally Freed to Share His Secrets, September 2014
The Rape of Europa. The story of Nazi Germany's plundering of Europe's great works of art during WWII and Allied efforts to minimize the damage. (Available on Netflix.)