USA Law and Practice Contributed by: Jana Slavina Farmer, Adam Buchwalter and Dara Elpren, Wilson Elser Moskowitz Edelman & Dicker LLP
buyer may seek restitution to recover the amount paid. Typically, the buyer would seek several of the available remedies in the alternative, but the court will craft the remedies so as to avoid double recovery. 5. Cultural Heritage 5.1 Defining Cultural Heritage Protections of Cultural Property in the United States While there is no single, universally binding legal defi - nition, “cultural heritage” or “cultural property” gener - ally refers to tangible and intangible assets of histori - cal, artistic or cultural significance. The United States is a party to the 1970 UNESCO Convention on the Means of Prohibiting and Prevent - ing the Illicit Import, Export and Transfer of Ownership of Cultural Property, as well as several other interna - tional conventions and agreements relating to the pro - tection of cultural property. The UNESCO Convention defines “cultural property” broadly to include property of importance to archaeology, prehistory, history, lit - erature, art, or science, which includes property of artistic interest. The United States formally implemented the UNESCO Convention with enactment of the Cultural Property Implementation Act in 1983, and enacted its own stat - utes regarding cultural property. These include fed - eral laws such as the National Historic Preservation Act and the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act, which recognise and protect various forms of cultural heritage, emphasising their impor - tance for historical, cultural and other purposes. 5.2 Cultural Heritage and Adverse Possession Adverse possession is a legal rule that allows some - one to gain ownership of another person’s land or per - sonal property if they openly use it for a set time and meet certain conditions. While adverse possession is generally regulated by state law, federal law, and US obligations under international conventions, cultural artefacts generally cannot be acquired by adverse possession. To the extent the cultural artefact was stolen or illegally exported from the country of origin,
a subsequent good faith purchaser for value cannot acquire good title. This principle was discussed in Autocephalous Greek- Orthodox Church v Goldberg & Feldman Fine Arts, Inc. (7th Circuit 1990) under Indiana state law. The court in Autocephalous ordered the return of Byzantine mosaics to Cyprus. The court also emphasised the importance of returning cultural property to its rightful owner, reflecting a broader public policy interest that supersedes the private interests of possessors. In United States v Schultz (2nd Circuit 2003), the court, applying the National Stolen Property Act (NSPA), held that Egyptian antiquities could not be lawfully owned or transferred, regardless of the length of possession, because they were considered the property of the Egyptian state under its patrimony laws. In December 2025, the US Senate unanimously passed the Holocaust Expropriated Art Recovery (HEAR) Act of 2025, which would extend and expand the original HEAR Act of 2016, currently set to expire at the end of 2026. The bill would assist Holocaust survivors and their families who are seeking the return of artworks now held in museums and collections across the United States by eliminating procedural defences such as laches in Holocaust-era art recovery claims. At the time of writing, the bill is pending before the House of Representatives. 5.3 State Rights to Cultural Heritage Status of Cultural Heritage Items Discovered by Private Individuals The legal status of items of significant historical, archaeological or cultural value discovered by private individuals depends on several factors, including the nature of the item, on whose land it was discovered, and whether the item is discovered on the surface or in the ground. In the United States, both federal and state governments may have rights and interests in such an item. Removing artefacts from state or federal land is illegal. Discoveries on federal land are gov - erned by federal laws. The Archaeological Resources Protection Act (ARPA) provides that archaeological resources found on federal or Native American lands may not be received, purchased, or sold without a permit. While the landowner may typically have the
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