This article explores the history of collecting and dealing in non-Western cultural objects—primarily from the Pacific Islands—from the earliest explorers to the modern auction houses. It considers international and domestic laws relating to indigenous cultural material that might be seen as religious or sacred in character and concludes that while these rules clearly influence both private and institutional practices they fall short of legally impacting the functioning of otherwise lawful markets.

In response to the emerging phenomenon of the role of nonstate actors in heritage protection and preservation, a one-day symposium took place on 16 March 2012 in the new Allard Hall building of the Faculty of Law at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada. The conference was officially opened by Dean of Law, Professor Mary Anne Bobinski and received financial support from the University of British Columbia, Faculty of Law Conference Fund; the Pacific Northwest Canadian Studies Consortium; and Golder Associates Ltd. The conference brought together seven experts from both academia and practice to discuss contemporary practices and emerging legal and sociological trends in heritage protection by private actors.

New Zealand claims for the return of preserved tattooed Maori heads held by foreign institutions have revisited complex legal, ethical, and cultural questions surrounding human remains in museum and other institutional collections worldwide. Recent legislation in France that facilitates the return of Maori heads in French museums represents a further stage in this ongoing story.

In August 2008 the Seventy-third Conference of the International Law Association (ILA) in Rio de Janeiro adopted the Cultural Heritage Law Committee's “Guidelines for the Establishment and Conduct of Safe Havens for Cultural Material,” the text of which appears in this issue. The Committee, after discussing its on-going project concerning the relationship between international trade law and the protection of cultural heritage, decided to focus on national export controls.

In October 2007, the mayor of the French city of Rouen agreed to return to New Zealand a preserved tattooed head of a Maori warrior (called toi moko by Maori) from that city's Museum of Natural History, whose collection the head had been part of since 1875. The decision to return the head was based on an initiative by the Museum of New Zealand (Te Papa Tongarewa), which has successfully secured the return of other such heads from museums in various European countries and the United States. Before the Rouen head could be handed over, however, the French Ministry of Culture intervened, arguing that its return was unauthorized under French law as being part of a French museum collection and thus inalienable.

Increasingly those concerned with cultural property favor an approach that focuses on protection and shared access over unequivocal demands for return to places of origin or insistence on retention by museums and other institutions. This article starts by describing the International Law Association and discussing its role, along with that of other nongovernmental organizations, in connection with the development of cultural heritage principles and instruments. It then outlines the intent behind “Draft Principles for Cooperation in the Mutual Protection and Transfer of Cultural Material” presently being developed by the Committee on Cultural Heritage Law of the International Law Association. The Committee favors a nonadversarial and collaborative approach to issues surrounding the return of cultural material to its place or people of origin. This article describes and discusses the draft principles being developed by the Committee. Its hope is that a set of principles could be developed that would form the basis for expediting the resolution of a variety of cultural property disputes. These principles are at an early stage in their development and the Committee welcomes suggestions for changes and additions to the draft principles as they now stand.