SOURCE CHECKS
The International Council of Museums (ICOM), which represents more than 40, 000 museums in over 141 countries, prescribes tight ethical code associated with conduct against the acquisition of stolen or illicit artefacts.
The particular ICOM code associated with ethics for museums stipulates that museums should exercise due diligence by establishing the entire history of the object given that its discovery or production prior to its acquisition, and that museums should not support the illicit traffic or market in organic and cultural home, directly or indirectly.
There are set up guidelines on how museums should undertake appropriate due diligence and provenance checks to ensure their own acquisitions are ethically and legally sound.
A key criterion is the 1970 threshold established by UNESCO to combat the illicit import, foreign trade, and transfer associated with cultural property.
What this means is that museums should not make the purchase unless there is documentary evidence that the item left the country of origin before 1970 or has proof that the object leaves legally after 1970.
While museums should consult the ICOM’s Red Lists of Cultural Objects at Risk database and the Art Loss Sign up, it is widely approved that these lists are not comprehensive and even if the slated object is not found on these lists, they should be backed by additional provenance checks in other areas.