Cuomo Vetoes Art Bill 1986 Roy M Goodman Mark Alan Siegal
three U.Due south. AGENCIES URGE VETO OF ART-CLAIM BILL
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July 23, 1986
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The State Department, the Justice Section and the United States Information Bureau have all urged Governor Cuomo to veto a beak intended to arrive easier for museums to institute ownership of artworks in their possession.
A quaternary bureau, the Customs Service, said information technology could not take a position on the legislation, which has been canonical by the New York Country Legislature, but told Mr. Cuomo that it might be unenforceable considering Federal law might pre-empt state action.
Federal agencies from fourth dimension to time issue recommendations on state legislation, but this instance is unusual because of the number of agencies involved and because of the force of their language.
Opponents of the pecker say information technology would not sufficiently protect foreign countries whose archeological, cultural or historical sites had been plundered. The bill's proponents say it is necessary to protect museums and private fine art collectors against unreasonable and costly claims brought by foreign countries for the return of art acquired in good organized religion and oft owned for many years.
In Albany, land officials were to take made a recommendation today on whether Mr. Cuomo should sign or veto the neb, but and then much opposition has developed that the recommendation was put off for ten days. The Governor'south counsel, Evan Davis, said today that he could not say what advice Mr. Cuomo's aides might give.
An Banana Attorney General for the country, Karin Goldman, said the beak was ambiguous and put too much of a burden on claimants. Agreeing with the State Department, she said the beak raised foreign-policy implications outside the state's jurisdiction. Would Establish Time Limit
The legislation would establish a statute of limitations vesting championship to artwork in museums or similar institutions if ownership was non first claimed by someone else. The museum would beginning have to do any ane of these three things:
* Publish a notice in its own publication, if it had a circulation of at least 500 and regularly listed acquisitions, or in a national or multistate newspaper or periodical, or in a New York State publication with a circulation of at least 50,000, or in a publication concerned with the blazon of object claimed.
* Brandish the object for at to the lowest degree 12 months during a 36-month menstruum.
* Identify the object in the establishment'south own catalogue for at least three years.
The bill was sponsored, at the request of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, by State Senator Roy Chiliad. Goodman, Republican of Manhattan, and Assemblyman Mark Alan Siegal, Democrat of Manhattan.
A similar bill was withdrawn terminal yr when the country's Attorney General, Robert Abrams, raised several objections. These included Mr. Abrams's view that its application was also wide, applying even to tiny ''collections'' consisting of just one artwork.
Ms. Goldman noted that some changes had been fabricated since and then but said the nib notwithstanding had problems. Museum Defends Bill
Both Mr. Goodman and Mr. Siegal were traveling today and were unavailable for annotate. Ashton Hawkins, a vice president and master counsel of the Metropolitan Museum, asserted that it was odd for so many Federal officials to go involved in what he said was conspicuously a state matter.
''Statutes of limitations are in every jurisdiction in the United States,'' Mr. Hawkins said, ''and 44 states permit the statute of limitations to start to run at the time the owner acquires the object unless he has washed something fraudulent or something similar that.''
''When yous have stolen belongings moving innocently into the hands of institutions and yous have a quondam owner, a claim appears,'' he said. ''At that point, you have two victims - the former owner and the present possessor, who paid for it. This neb tries to mediate a residue.''
The measure is intended to aid museums gain title to works whose buying might be in dispute, but Ely Maurer, the assistant legal adviser for educational, cultural and public diplomacy at the State Department, said today that it would cause much harm, particularly to poorer countries that could non exist aware of where their stolen artwork might air current up.
Noting that i way championship could be established was past including the particular in a museum's publication, Mr. Maurer asked, ''How is a citizen of Upper Volta going to become notice of this?'' 'Laundering' Stolen Art
Mr. Maurer also wrote to Mr. Cuomo that the mensurate might make New York Country ''a place for laundering stolen cultural property.''
By ''laundering,'' Mr. Maurer explained, he meant that a museum, subsequently gaining title to an object, might sell it to some other establishment exterior New York State, conveying title with the sale.
Marvin Stone, deputy managing director of the United States Information Bureau, also voiced concern about the bill in a letter to Mr. Cuomo.
''It places an unfair burden on foreign governments in their efforts to recover stolen cultural property in New York Country, where the largest international art market and largest collections in the Us reside,'' Mr. Stone wrote.
Dr. Constance Lowenthal, executive director of the International Foundation for Art Research, a private agency that combats trafficking in stolen and forged art, said of the bill, ''Nosotros cannot support information technology because we feel that it makes recovery of stolen art and so difficult that it volition encourage theft.''
Source: https://www.nytimes.com/1986/07/23/arts/3-us-agencies-urge-veto-of-art-claim-bill.html
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