Lehavi, Amnon, From Global Databases to Global Norms? The Future of Cultural Property Law (May 26, 2022). University of Pennsylvania Journal of International Law, 2023 Forthcoming, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=4120523 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.4120523

“This Article identifies the key role that digital databases with global access can play in bridging over significant disparities between national legal systems. Such global databases can be utilized for the resolution of cross-border disputes that involve case-specific challenges of fact-finding, as well as for the interpretation of legal terms such as “good faith,” “due diligence,” or “due care.” More fundamentally, the existence of transparent, reliable, and globally accessible databases, which enable public and private actors from different jurisdictions to both register data and retrieve it, can bring legal systems closer in reconsidering the underlying normative principles that govern various legal fields that had been traditionally typified by cross-border legal differences. This Article seeks to show, therefore, that the natural flow of information through global databases can have significant normative implications in mitigating certain ill-effects of legal disparities across national legal systems, including by prompting a deliberation of new international instruments. To illustrate the potential of global databases to gradually bring closer national legal systems, or to facilitate the creation of new ‘soft law’ or ‘hard law’ cross-border norms, this Article focuses on recent developments in the national and supranational legal regimes concerning cultural property. Particularly, it looks at the growing influence that such global databases may have on rules and procedures concerning the restitution or return of cultural objects – such as artwork or archaeological artifacts – that have been stolen, looted, or illicitly exported across national borders. It shows how such global databases can foster a better enforcement of current legal instruments, such as the 1970 UNESCO Convention and the 1995 UNIDROIT Convention on cultural property, while creating a basis for future cross-border substantive and procedural norms.”