Page 161 - Courting the Media Contemporary Perspectives on Media and Law

152 Shea Esterling

social sciences ―as the law itself is deemed to be the only authoritative source
of law‖ [Thornton, p. 3]. Thornton continues and argues that such self-
referentialism is maintained through legal positivism, which refers to that
which is posited by the authoritative pronouncements of judges and
legislatures [Thornton, pp. 10-15].
However, despite its hostility to popular culture, legal research often lends
itself to and benefits from the use of other unconventional sources. Research
regarding the illicit trafficking and repatriation of cultural objects proves no
exception, and includes academic voices outside of the legal profession such
as anthropologists and archaeologists who often focus on the use of
unconventional sources as a matter of course. In turn, this area of research has
legitimized these voices and in doing so legitimized the use of many
unconventional sources beyond that of many other areas of legal research.
Moreover, the nature of this area of research lends itself to the use of such
sources as the result of a potentially cyclical relationship between
unconventional sources and cultural objects.
3
Specifically, many cultural objects may be non-conventional sources
while many non-conventional sources may be cultural objects. For instance,
cultural objects have inspired numerous poems and songs which arguably may
become cultural objects in their own right. As regards the former, the Elgin
Marbles inspired John Keats to pen the aptly named poem On Seeing the Elgin
Marbles for the First Time in which he writes:

So do these wonders a most dizzy pain,
That mingles Grecian grandeur with the ride
Wasting of old Time- with a billowy main,
A sun, a shadow of a magnitude. [Keats, 7 May 2008].

In turn, the illicit trafficking and repatriation of cultural objects discourse
relies on and so benefits from the use of unconventional sources. For instance,

3
Article 2 of the International Institute for the Unification of Private Law (UNIDROIT)
Convention on Stolen or Illegally Exported Cultural Objects (UNIDROIT Convention)
defines cultural objects as ―those which, on religious or secular grounds, are of importance
for archaeology, prehistory, history, literature, art or science and belong to one of the
categories listed in the Annex to this Convention‖ [UNIDROIT Convention, Art. 2, p.
1331). The Annex specifically includes categories of cultural objects that reflect the non-
conventional sources discussed herein including visual depictions, literature and cinema.
Respectively, it makes reference to ―pictures, paintings and drawings‖ as well as ―rare
manuscripts and incunabula, old books, documents and publications of special interest
(historical, artistic, scientific, literary, etc.)‖ and to ―archives, including sound, photographic
and cinematographic archives‖ [UNIDROIT Convention, Annex, p. 1339].