Return or restitution of cultural property to the countries of origin : resolution / adopted by the General Assembly.

Recommends that Member States adopt or strengthen the necessary protective legislation with regard to their own heritage and that of other peoples; requests Member States to study the possibility of including in permits for excavations a clause requiring archaelogists and palaeontologists to provide the national authorities with photographic documentation of each object brought to light during the excavations immediately after its discovery; invites Member States to continue drawing up, in co-operation with Unesco systematic inventories of cultural property existing in their territory and of their cultural property abroad; recommends that Member States should ensure that inventories of museum collections include not only the items on display but also those in storage, and that they comprise all necessary documentation, particularly photographs of each item; invites Member States engaged in seeking the recovery of cultural and artistic treasures from the sea-bed, in accordance with international law, to facilitate by mutually acceptable conditions the participation of States having a historical and cultural link with those treasures; appeals to Member States to co-operate closely with the Intergovernmental Committee for Promoting the Return of Cultural Property to its Countries of Origin or its Restitution in Case of Illicit Appropriation and to conclude bilateral agreements for this purpose; appeals to Member States to encourage the mass information media and educational and cultural institutions to strive to arouse a greater and more general awareness with regard to the return or restitution of cultural property to its country of origin.

Adopted 103-0-15, 47th meeting

3 p.

Adopted at the 47th plenary meeting, 22 Oct. 1987.
In: Resolutions and decisions adopted by the General Assembly during its 42nd session, Volume 1, 15 September-21 December 1987. - A/42/49. - 1988. - p. 18-19. - (GAOR, 42nd sess., Suppl. no. 49).