Inauguration of ArtResolve

The occasion was marked by a very cordial message of support from the Minister for the Arts, the Rt Hon Alan Howarth, CBE MP.  In his letter the Minister expressed his confidence in the project and in its founding body, one member of which (Professor Norman Palmer) he had recently appointed to chair the Ministerial Advisory Panel on the Illicit Trade in Cultural Objects.  He made the point that the initiative was wholly in keeping with the Government’s own policy of encouraging out-of-court methods of resolving disputes.

International Council

Sir Anthony will be joined by an International Advisory Council, appointments to which will be announced over the coming year.  The Council will lead us towards wider international development and guide our response to global conditions.  We are delighted to announce that Professor Pierre Lalive, a scholar, arbitrator and practising lawyer of unparalleled eminence in our field, has already accepted an invitation to join the Council.

International developments

The collaboration with Venice proved so successful that the Venice Foundation has now invited ArtResolve to enter into a formal association with the Foundation, the terms of which are being discussed.

From Venice, Norman Palmer went to Lithuania as a member of the United Kingdom delegation to the Vilnius Forum on Holocaust Claims and gave an address on the legal and evidential difficulties of cross-border legal claims for spoliated art.  Norman Palmer is a member of the Spoliation Advisory Panel established by the Minister for the Arts in May 2000, under the chairmanship of Sir David Hirst, to consider claims by persons who lost possession of cultural objects over the period 1933 to 1945.  Significantly for our field, the Resolutions adopted by the Vilnius Forum at its plenary session in October 2000 include an endorsement of the Washington Conference Principles of December 1998 on Nazi-Confiscated Art.  The Eleventh Washington Principle calls on nations to "develop national processes to implement these principles, particularly as they relate to alternative dispute resolution mechanisms for resolving ownership issues."  We believe that the foundation of ArtResolve conforms to the spirit of this principle.

Later in October Norman Palmer spoke at the Holocaust Claims Forum at Geneva (organised by the Art Law Centre) and at the Museums Conference at Paris (organised by the European Registrars’ Group).  At each conference his paper was followed by a discussion on the avoidance, adjudication and mediation of third-party title claims to works of art.

ArtResolve was well represented at the Institute of Art and Law Annual Lecture in London in December 2000.  The event was sponsored by Invaluable and drew an audience of almost two hundred people.  Sharne Thomas organised and chaired William G Stewart’s lecture on the Parthenon Sculptures and other members present included Dick Ellis, Hetty Gleave and Paul Britton.  Also in December 2000, Norman Palmer spoke at the Institute of Art and Law seminar on Repatriation from Museum Collections, his subject being ‘Legislation, Litigation and Loss’.  The seminar, which was also addressed by David Hill, Hillary Bauer, Laura Peers, Elizabeth Cameron, Len Pole, John Picton, David Lowenthal and Christopher Robbins, was sponsored by Maxima and hosted by the international law firm Clyde and Company.

At all of these events the desirability of finding ways of settling art disputes by methods other than court action was a recurrent theme.

‘Ave atque vale’ 

Four new directors join our existing board from February 2001.  A cordial welcome is extended to Rosslyn Lee, a barrister and Civil War historian, Ian Snaith, Reader in law at Leicester University and an expert on money laundering, Sharne Thomas who joins us from the Institute of Art and Law where she was manager and responsible for ArtResolve registration, and Paul Britton who joins us from the valuations department of Phillips De Pury and Luxemburg.  They will work alongside the three original directors, Hetty Gleave, Margaret Hatton and Norman Palmer, in raising awareness of the potential of non-forensic methods of dispute resolution in art claims and in developing the use of pre-dispute ArtResolve clauses. 

Pressure of commitments has compelled others to take their leave.  John Kendall relinquished his position as our Chairman and Director late in 2000 and we are particularly grateful to him for the significant contribution he made to ArtResolve in our  formative months.  Other departures were those of Tony Baumgartner and Roger Bland who were both also exceptionally helpful to us in the initial stages and played a large part in our foundation.  All three take with them our good wishes.  Norman Palmer will act as Treasurer until further notice.

Towards the horizon

A key element in our capability will be the specialist team of art experts which we have assembled over the past year.  Specialist in-house training courses have been developed to introduce these experts to the concept of mediation and over ten non-law professionals have now joined our expert panel. In addition to expert determinations and early neutral evaluations they will therefore also be able to assist mediators in those mediations which require a specialist knowledge within a particular field.  Of course, in addition to our list of experienced non-law mediators we maintain a panel of lawyer dispute resolvers, drawn from former judges and current members of the legal profession.  Approaches have already been made to ArtResolve in relation to major international heritage disputes and further developments are likely by the time of our next letter.

With a renewed and strengthened board of directors, and a strong team of mediators and expert advisers, ArtResolve has much to look forward to in the new millennium.  We will continue to promote the virtues of arbitrating and mediating art-related disputes among all who are likely to be involved in such disputes.  We are confident that ArtResolve will become synonymous with the fair and efficient resolution of disputes throughout the art and cultural property world.

Feb 2001

ArtResolve was formally launched on Thursday, 13th July 2000 at a reception held at The Royal Society of Arts, with the support of two law firms, Alexanders and Nicholson Graham & Jones.

Attendance reflected the wide spectrum of professions which ArtResolve’s services are designed for. Among others, there were representatives from auction houses, art recovery agencies, galleries, museums, insurance brokers and law firms. 

The Minister for the Arts, Alan Howarth, was to have attended the launch, but the Parliamentary timetable unfortunately prevented him from doing so.  However it did not prevent him from sending a ringing endorsement of ArtResolve, as follows:

"I cordially welcome the new initiative that ArtResolve represents. It is in the best spirit of creative exploration of ways of solving disputes and handling claims in this area. All the ideas behind this accord very closely with the Government’s own policy on encouraging the resolution of disputes by out of court means. It also display a similar approach to that which I have adopted in the specific area of claims relating to cultural property, namely the Spoliation Advisory Panel, which has been established to handle claims from anyone who lost possession of a cultural object during the nazi era where this is now in a United Kingdom public collection. This is a most distinguished Panel, including as it does Professor Norman Palmer!

The Government offers its warmest support to ArtResolve and hopes that its initiative will be reciprocated by open-mindedness on the part of claimants, not least as a most welcome and affordable alternative to litigation."