Looting of cultural property in wartime
The destruction, confiscation or looting of artworks and collections during armed conflict, a risk excluded from fine art policies by the war clause and addressed through international law and preventive evacuation.
War threatens heritage in three ways: destruction by fighting, opportunistic looting, and organized looting by an occupying power that moves collections onto its own territory. Fine art policies exclude damage resulting from war, confiscation and seizure by an authority, so collections located in a country at war are in practice uninsured for these events. Their protection relies on international law, which forbids targeting and looting cultural property and obliges the occupying power to preserve it, on preventive evacuation of works to safe places, and on documented inventories, which later make it possible to trace and claim dispersed objects. Looted works sometimes reappear years later on the market, turning a war risk into a title risk for their successive buyers.
In November 2022, before withdrawing from Kherson, Russian forces removed thousands of works from the city's regional art museum, an organized looting that Ukrainian authorities are documenting to seek restitution.
Follow the research
One letter a week. First, the week's underwriting note, when one is published: a dated, argued decision, signed by Paul Bernardski. Then what the observatory published on cyber risk, political risk and insurance. No account, no tracking.
No spam, one-click unsubscribe, no data ever sold.