The Chapman Law Review is proud to publish the keynote address delivered by Erin L. Thompson at the 2025 Chapman Law Review Symposium: Is This Cultural Property Law?: The Emerging Norm of Voluntary Repatriations. Below, you will find the abstract from her address.

Is This Cultural Property Law?: The Emerging Norm of Voluntary Repatriations

By Erin L. Thompson

Abstract

The last decade has seen a sea change in public awareness and attitude toward the histories of theft and smuggling that brought many cultural artifacts from their communities of origin to private and public collections in America. This presentation will first consider the legal remedies source countries have used to reclaim their heritage and then move to a discussion of the emerging idea of voluntary repatriations—when the current owner of an artifact returns it to a source country or community in circumstances where legal authorities would not compel its surrender.

Although the value of voluntary repatriations is far from universally accepted, the idea seems to be moving toward the mainstream of the museum world, at least as an option worthy of discussion. Using case histories from Nepal, Cambodia, and elsewhere, I will argue that a voluntary repatriation of a cultural artifact with gaps in its ownership history should take place when there is little to no probability that these gaps can be filled by further research and it is more probable than not that the unknown transfers were illicit.