“Sovereign Objects: International Dimensions of Indigenous Repatriation in Canada” explores the complexities of cultural repatriation in Canadian museums, advocating for its recognition as an international issue. By framing repatriation this way, the study acknowledges Indigenous sovereignty and aligns with international legal standards such as the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP). The international approach enhances political, social, and cultural outcomes for First Nations peoples, providing a robust legal framework and fostering greater recognition of Indigenous nations as sovereign entities. The manuscript highlights the importance of acknowledging the distinct cultural and political status of Indigenous communities, supported by historical treaties and contemporary legal recognition. It provides case studies, such as the repatriation of human remains from the Royal Ontario Museum to the Rainy River First Nations, to illustrate the practical application of these principles. The study also critically examines the challenges of adopting the discourse of “nations,” including the technical, political, social, and cultural expectations involved. By redefining repatriation as an international issue, this research promotes a deeper understanding of Indigenous sovereignty and facilitates more effective and culturally sensitive repatriation efforts. The manuscript argues that such an approach is essential for ensuring that repatriation processes are respectful, equitable, and aligned with the unique governance structures of Indigenous communities.

This article assesses the planning, management and repatriation of Japanese civilians in Shanghai between 1945 and 1948. It examines four interwoven dimensions of this history. The first is the removal of Japanese expatriates as the centerpiece of the Kuomintang and Allied Powers' project to end Japanese colonialism once and for all. The second is how the Japanese community continued to exert a degree of autonomy and agency under the extremely unfavorable postwar circumstances. The third is the nature of postwar attempts to match each person with a definitive ethnic-national category. The fourth is how postwar history was experienced at the individual level among Japanese of different social strata and experiences.

Four ugui portraits of kings of the Okinawan kingdom of Lūchū (Ryūkyū) were returned to Okinawa in March 2024 along with sixteen other artifacts stolen by American soldiers during the 1945 Battle of Okinawa. These are the first such royal portraits to be confirmed extant, and the first such royal treasures to be recovered since 1953. This essay describes the repatriated portraits, as well as the theft and search for the royal treasures looted in 1945 and their cultural and emotional significance for a people who lost a great volume of their tangible heritage in World War II.

This essay focuses on the historical memory of Korean repatriation in postwar Japan, by examining the commemoration of the Ukishima-maru incident in which thousands of forced laborers died when their ship sank after striking a mine. We show how local memory activists in Maizuru and Shimokita mobilised to present an alternative narrative to that on display at the Maizuru Repatriation Memorial Museum which overlooks Korean repatriation. It shows how despite limited means they were able to build a network of memory activists that transcends local and national borders.

This article reproduces documents related to an aborted SCAP war crime investigation into the Ukishima-maru incident conducted during the Allied occupation of Japan. The incident involved the sinking of a repatriation vessel (the Ukishima-maru) on 24 August 1945 after it apparently struck a mine in Maizuru Bay, causing hundreds if not thousands of deaths among the Korean forced laborers aboard the vessel. The documents include the testimonies of Korean survivors (submitted in Japanese and translated into English by SCAP officers) which supported the claim that the incident was planned by the Japanese authorities. Though the investigation was eventually terminated by SCAP which dismissed the testimonies as “hearsay account[s]”, the documents are a useful window into the tense situation faced by Koreans in Japan during the immediate postwar years and cast light on the nature and quality of SCAP efforts to pursue justice in its investigation.

On December 14, 1959, amidst much fanfare and tears, the first repatriation boat (provided by the Soviet Union) carried thousands of Koreans from Niigata, Japan, to Cheongjin, North Korea. Hailed as a humanitarian project under the intermediation of the International Committee of the Red Cross, the repatriation of Koreans from Japan to North Korea continued until 1984, resulting in a total of more than 93,000 repatriates who relocated from Japan to North Korea amidst the Cold War division of the world with the majority never to return to Japan again. This article addresses multiple aspects of this project, looking into the media portrayal of North Korea at the time of the opening of the repatriation and the more recent academic discussion following the de-classification of the International Committee of the Red Cross papers. Based on these, the article frames the repatriation in a new light with the suggestion of possibly thinking about it as a form of human trafficking without reducing it into a one-dimensional political event or conspiracy by one government or another. Instead, the article emphasizes that the structure of power that sustained the repatriation was complex and so were the lives that repatriates experienced.

Repatriation of human remains and associated funerary objects under NAGPRA and the increased use of culturally informed curation practices for sacred, religious, and ceremonial objects are important steps toward restoring control over cultural patrimony to Native Nations in the United States. Many museums holding Indigenous belongings have begun a collaborative care approach involving Indigenous community voices and improving access to collections. However, this framework has not been applied to many animal remains curated in American archaeology museums, which remain broadly beyond the care or administrative purview of Native people. Because many Indigenous worldviews do not hold a clear separation between the human and animal spheres, common practices applied to animal remains are not congruent with the idea of respectful or culturally informed care. Here we outline steps to shift the treatment of animals through the application of Indigenous knowledge to museum collections.

Deprivation of national citizenship is one of the strategies used to counter the phenomenon of foreign terrorist fighters, that is, individuals traveling abroad for the purpose of terrorism. This Article begins with a short overview of the case-law of the European Court of Human Rights on the deprivation of citizenship. In these cases, the contestation of the deprivation of citizenship was based on the infringement of the rights to private and family life. We then turn to the limits imposed by EU law on decisions made by national authorities of Member States concerning citizenship deprivation of foreign terrorist fighters. Focusing on recent cases of the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) concerning the European citizenship, we address the evolving role that EU law plays in the assessment of the proportionality of Member States’ decisions to strip individuals of national citizenship. We also consider the national practice, focusing on a recent decision in Denmark. In addition, we consider legal issues arising from the repatriation of Foreign Terrorist Fighters and their children. We argue that EU citizenship thus offers a further layer of protection against the deprivation of citizenship and that Member States are under a positive obligation to repatriate EU citizens who are the children of Foreign Terrorist Fighters on account of the case-law stemming from the Ruiz-Zambrano and X (Thai national) cases. For the moment, no common approach to repatriation of foreign fighters, or their children, is taken by EU member States in the context of the EU.

The so-called “Prakhon Chai Hoard” is one of Southeast Asia’s most infamous cases of looting. The story begins in 1964 when a cache of Buddhist bronzes from Northeast Thailand appeared on the international art market via the auction house Spink & Son, London. They quickly ended up in museums and private collections throughout the US and Europe. The exact findspot was unclear but soon became associated with an unidentified temple in Prakhon Chai district in Buriram province. The moniker “Prakhon Chai Hoard/bronzes” subsequently took hold, becoming commonplace in museum displays, dealer/auction house catalogs, and art historical discourse. However, in 2002, it was revealed the temple in question was Plai Bat II in Lahan Sai district.

This article untangles the many myths and misunderstandings surrounding this act of looting. It does so by reviewing the extant literature in light of information revealed by criminal investigations into the late Douglas Latchford from 2012 onwards, and presenting conclusions drawn from our decade-long documentation of villager testimonies at Plai Bat II (2014–2024).

A growing number of institutions that hold cultural heritage artifacts are now considering voluntary repatriations in which they choose to return an artifact despite unfilled gaps in their knowledge of its ownership history. But how are institutions to judge whether it is more probable that such gaps conceal theft and illicit export or are innocuous? Attempting to answer this question for Nepal, we examine published and archival records to trace the history of the growth in collecting of Nepali cultural heritage in the United States, with special attention to a 1964 exhibition at New York’s Asia Society Gallery, “The Art of Nepal,” and the activity of the New York dealers Nasli and Alice Heeramaneck. We conclude that the majority of Nepali heritage items in America entered after Nepal prohibited their export.

In Northeastern Brazil, successful release programmes have been implemented for the conservation of West Indian manatees (Trichechus manatus) since the 1990s. Recently, the non-government organization AQUASIS started releasing manatees in the state of Ceará, where oceanographic conditions and the absence of sheltered places pose new challenges for the release and monitoring of manatees. This research investigates the movement of a manatee named Tico, released in Icapuí, Ceará, Brazil, that travelled approximately 4017 km over 62 days through deep oceanic waters. Correlating Tico's trajectory and velocity with surface currents revealed the influence of the North Brazil Current (NBC) and its vortices on his movement. Tico crossed the diluted Amazon River plume with surface salinity as low as 26 g kg−1 in early August, potentially encountering areas of even lower salinity. Additionally, Tico experienced several storms, with significant rainfall during his journey, which may have provided freshwater. The erratic movement patterns and significant weight loss prompted the rescue of Tico on Isla la Blanquilla, Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela. Tico is currently being temporarily housed in Parque Zoológico y Botánico Bararida in Venezuela. Understanding the nature of Tico's long-distance movement could help inform decisions about his future. AQUASIS proposes to return Tico to Brazil, a region with an ecologically and genetically distinct population from Venezuela, for a second release attempt, incorporating lessons learned from the first release. Furthermore, AQUASIS has the necessary human and financial resources to ensure the continuous monitoring of Tico during his readaptation to the wild.

While disputes concerning the return of antiquities and artworks have become increasingly prevalent and receive public attention, the parallel issue of returning unlawfully exported fossils is rarely discussed. The fossils of “Ubirajara jubatus” and Irritator challengeri are prime examples of such disputes: they were taken from Brazil unlawfully, as Brazilian researchers allege, and displayed in German museums. The return disputes were characterized by both parties relying on arguments based almost exclusively on public (international) law. This Article explores private law as an alternative approach to these and similar disputes, discussing whether the fossils are the property of Brazil and could, therefore, be claimed in an action for restitution under German law. It finds that both fossils belong to Brazil since the museums did not acquire good title through a good faith purchase or acquisitive prescription.

This theme issue has two primary goals: to illuminate the underdeveloped or faltering areas of the discipline as they relate to archaeological collections and to offer tangible paths forward to address the systemic problems identified as they impact the future of archaeology. Present-day archaeology is complicated due to its many sectors of practice: academia/faculty; cultural resource management; federal, state, and local government; tribal governments and communities; descendant communities; students; the general public; and different types of archaeological repositories. Given this complexity, it can be difficult to identify the expectations (and realities) of each sector, which, if better understood, would help illuminate the nuances of preservation, accountability, discoverability, and use of archaeological collections across the discipline. Without a solid understanding of these nuances, efforts to advance the discipline are undermined. This introduction provides an overview of the articles that address emerging and urgent issues and offer viable steps forward. These challenges include the interrelationships between ethics, collaboration, and training; the preservation and management of digital records and data; collections discovery and reuse; collections-based research; training in material culture; making collections knowable to constituencies outside archaeology; preparing for repatriation from a management perspective; and the intricacies of the archaeological digital data system.