1970 UNESCO Convention (illicit trafficking of cultural property)
The international convention that commits states to preventing the illicit import, export and transfer of ownership of cultural property, whose 1970 date serves as a due diligence benchmark for the art market.
The Convention on the Means of Prohibiting and Preventing the Illicit Import, Export and Transfer of Ownership of Cultural Property requires state parties to control the export of their heritage, to ban the import of property stolen from museums and institutions of other states, and to cooperate in its return. It is not retroactive, but its date has become a practical threshold: for an antiquity or archeological object, the market and museums increasingly require documented provenance before 1970, failing which the object is presumed suspect. For the insurer, this due diligence rule has two effects: an object without pre-1970 provenance carries high title risk, open to claims and seizure, and its agreed value can collapse if it becomes unsellable. The convention is supplemented by the 1995 UNIDROIT Convention, which addresses the private law of restitution.
Adopted in Paris on November 14, 1970 and ratified by France in 1997, the convention made 1970 the pivotal date after which an ancient vase with no documented history is turned down by most major auction houses.
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