동아시아지역의 문화재 보호 및 불법거래방지에 관한 법적 고찰

Abstract

The prevention of the illicit trade in cultural objects has recently become a

global issue. The illegal trade in cultural objects is now increasingly recognized

as one of the most prevalent categories of international crime. As the seriousness

of the problem is widely felt, international society is making a concerted effort

to bring this problem under control through international cooperation. For

instance, it has adopted a series of international treaties on the prevention of the

traffic in stolen or illegally exported cultural objects such as the 1970 UNESCO

Convention on the Means of Prohibiting and Preventing the Illicit Import, Export

and Transfer of Ownership of Cultural Property and the 1995 UNIDROIT

Convention on the International Return of Stolen or Illegally Exported Cultural

Objects. Not only national governments but also various NGOs and other

private-sector institutions and persons are participating in this concerted effort.

In this paper, I have discussed the prevention of the illicit trade in cultural

objects from an East Asian perspective. It is needless to say that the prevention

of the illegal traffic in cultural objects in East Asia has much in common with

that problem in other regions. In these problem areas common to East Asia and

other regions, I have discussed the present state of those problems in East Asia.

In addition to these common problems, I have tried to identify and discuss some

of the problems which I believe are specific to the East Asian region, such as

the massive transfer of Chinese and Korean cultural objects into Japan in the...