This article applies the tools of legal semiotics to examine the
terms, modalities, and conventions of legal argument in the cultural
property context. In a first instance, the author re-enacts Duncan
Kennedy's study of recurrent patterns within legal argument to
illustrate the highly structured nature of most cultural property
argument. This mapping exercise shows how legal concepts draw their
meaning in part from their place within a broader linguistic system, and
as a result cannot by themselves form an adequate basis for ethical
positions. Following this, the pervasive Elgin Marbles controversy is
shown to resemble a myth (in Roland Barthes's sense of the term)
behind which a series of value judgments and support systems are embedded
into cultural property argument. The conclusion presents a number of
observations sketching a framework centered on restitution as a starting
point for resolution of cultural property disputes.Acknowledgements: I am grateful for the many helpful comments
received on previous versions of this piece, especially from Ali Wick,
Lama Abu Odeh, and Alex Bauer. A special thank you to Natalia and Sofia
for their support.