Unternavigation

Museum ethics

The Code of Ethics for Museums of the International Council of Museums (ICOM) establishes a specific set of criteria for the obligations of due diligence.

For provenance research and due diligence they state in section 2.3 that “every effort must be made before acquisition to ensure that any object or specimen offered for purchase, gift, loan, bequest, or exchange has not been illegally obtained in, or exported from, its country of origin or any intermediate country in which it might have been owned legally (including the museum's own country). Due diligence in this regard should establish the full history of the item since discovery or production.”