Legal star power is being deployed in the form of the very well-known London barristers, Geoffrey Robertson QC and Amal Alamuddin, in Greece’s latest attempt to have the Elgin or Parthenon Marbles returned to Greece. Housed in the British Museum in London since 1816, these sculptures have been the subject of contentious legal to-ings and fro-ings since the early 1980s. Under English law, the Museum owns the Marbles, and says it cannot lawfully return them to Greece. Greece contends they were removed unlawfully all those years ago and should be returned. The dispute over the Marbles is one of the most high-profile, and fraught, of the many contested cultural objects and national treasures sitting in museums around the world.
History
Citation
Leiboff, M. (2014). Lawyers look at the Elgin Marbles, but stars keep them firmly in sight. The Conversation, (10 October), 1-3.