The Applicable Law to the International Cultural Heritage Disputes

Resolving the conflict of laws applicable to cultural heritage disputes is an important challenge in private international law. The cause of this challenge is, on the one hand, the preponderant role of cultural property in constituting of cultural and historical identity of nations, and the enormous profit of illicit trade of cultural properties on the other hand which leads to numerous disputes. In most of these claims, the lex rei sitae rule has been applied that normally leads to the issuance of unfair judgments. The negative effects of these decisions result in the question of determining the proper law governing cultural property claims. The theory of applying the lex originis rule to cultural property disputes is the theory which is accepted in this article. In order to prove this theory, this article is divided into two parts using a descriptive and analytical method: at first, the lex rei situs rule will be studied and the application of this rule to cultural property claims will be examined by a critical perspective and then the alternative courses of action will be analyzed.