Cultural Heritage in Juridical Realm of Things

Abstract

Introduction. This article deals with the concepts of cultural heritage and cultural property from the standpoint of legal history and philosophy. This research reflection was inspired by the Draft Law of Ukraine “On Cultural Market Goods”. The author follows the path determined by language and by peculiarities of civil law tradition. It is high time to return to a dialectical understanding of Romance and Germanic traditions as two contradictive poles of heritage law understanding in Continental Europe. The aim of the article is the analysis of the correlation of “cultural heritage” and “cultural property” notions within international law and national law of Ukraine, and integration of these notions into the united concept of heritage law. Results. First, the fundamental terms and definitions – for instance, “bien” (French) and “Sache” (German) – related to the property law have been analysed in relevant civil codes of Romance and Germanic traditions. The property law in the civil law tradition provides a certain legal description of the whole visible and abstract world. Hence, the way passed from the Napoleonic Code to the German Bürgerliches Gesetzbuch was both the development of legal forms, as well as the evolution of the world outlook reflected in the legal texts. In the French Code civil, one can observe a baroque pattern of the world of things, especially manifested by a difficult correlation between “bien” and “chose” concepts. The definition of “Sache” in Bürgerliches Gesetzbuch demonstrates the positivistic world vision. Because Bürgerliches Gesetzbuch is more advanced from the legal drafting methodology, its specific patterns and notions were implemented by the civil codes of the majority of European countries. On the contrary, in the heritage law realm, the Romance “bien” concept has been dominating. Conclusions. Paper states that the Romance law tradition and, particularly, the French doctrine of the civil law have a determining impact on the roots and on the formation of the modern vision of the cultural property. Hence, such doctrinal foundations seem to be efficient for a systematic and organic comprehension of the heritage law.