The Intergovernmental Committee: mechanisms for a new dialogue

Abstract

The entire issue of Museum; Vol, XXXI, No. 1, 1979, was devoted to the question of the return and restitution of cultural property. In 1980, from 5 to 9 May, the first session of the Intergovernmental Committee for Promoting the Return of Cultural Property to its Countries of Origin or its Restitution in Case of Illicit Appropriation was held in Paris. The meeting attracted very considerable interest. Not only did nineteen of the twenty states who are members of the committee send active representatives, but the observers of thirty‐seven other Member States of Unesco also attended, together with observers from intergovernmental and non‐governmental organizations (ICOM in particular). When the report of the committee was submitted to Unesco's General Conference in Belgrade at its twenty‐first session last autumn, the Chairman of the committee, Lebanese writer, poet and diplomat Salah Stétié, made a remarkable presentation of this complex and emotionally charged issue to the assembled delegates. The lines that follow are a condensed version of his remarks.