This collection is the product of a collaborative venture between criminologists and archaeologists concerned with the international market in illicit antiquities. It examines the state of regulation in the antiquities market, with a particular focus on the UK's position, but also with reference to the international context.
Looting happens routinely and many countries have rich deposits of cultural material. Antiquities are highly collectable, and there are several prominent international centres for trade. As well as the legitimate face of the antiquities trade there therefore exists an international illicit market in which cultural objects are trafficked for profit in breach of national laws and international conventions.
It is within such a complex international and local regulatory context that the essays presented here emerge, focusing upon three areas in particular: the demand for looted antiquities; the supply of cultural artefacts which originate in source countries; and regulation of the international market in antiquities.
Criminology has long been interested in transnational crime and its regulation. Archaeologists' concerns lie in the destructive consequences of antiquities looting, which erases our knowledge of the past. In the papers presented here both disciplines present new data and analysis to forge a more coherent understanding of the nature and failings of the regulatory framework currently in place to combat the criminal market in antiquities.
Green, Penny: - Penny Green is Professor of Law and Criminology and Head of Research at the School of Law, King's College London.
Hunter, Rosemary: - Rosemary Hunter FacSS is Professor of Socio-Legal Studies and Founding Head of Law at the School of Social Sciences and Humanities at Loughborough University, UK. She is a feminist socio-legal scholar with particular interests in family law and family justice processes, judging and the judiciary, and access to justice. She has published widely on these topics in both Australia (where she began her academic career) and the UK. With Anne Barlow, she was a member of the ESRC-funded Mapping Paths to Family Justice project, which resulted in their prize-winning book, Mapping Paths to Family Justice: Resolving Family Disputes in Neoliberal Times (Barlow, Hunter, Smithson and Ewing, 2017). Rosemary has been the Academic Member of the Family Justice Council since 2016 and leads the Council's Domestic Abuse Working Group. She is also a member of the Private Law Working Group and the Ministry of Justice's Expert Panel on Harm in the Family Courts. She is a former Chair of the SLSA and a former Council member of JUSTICE.
MacKenzie, Simon: - Simon Mackenzie is Reader in Criminology at the Scottish Centre for Crime and Justice Research, University of Glasgow.
Nelken, David: - David Nelken is Professor of Comparative and Transnational Law and past Vice-Dean for Research at King's College London, UK. Widely published in sociology of law and in criminology, he has received awards from the American Sociological Association, the American Society of Criminology, the International Sociological Association, and the (USA) Law and Society Association. He has twice been a Trustee of the LSA and Vice-President of the RSCL.
