Essentially, all three words refer to mechanisms for the transfer of cultural objects. While the strict meaning of restitution applies to the transfer of stolen objects to their original owners and repatriation to the transfer of objects identified with a particular place or cultural patrimony, the use of return is more overarching.  It is used widely to cover both these mechanisms.

Decisions of this importance are usually the responsibility of a museum’s board of trustees.  But not always.  Britain’s national collections, such as The British Museum and Victoria and Albert Museum, are subject to Acts of Parliament.  These Acts impose rigid legal constraints that prevent trustees from negotiating the return of almost all objects in their collections.  By contrast, powers may already exist within regional and university collections for trustees to return objects.  How far they will exercise these powers depends on each museum’s own constitution and governing powers, which in turn will determine each museum’s own Collections Policy.  Collections will also refer to guidance called ‘Code of Ethics for Museums’ produced by the Museums Association, which states that museums should "Deal sensitively and promptly with requests for repatriation both within the UK and from abroad." In August 2022 Arts Council England published new restitution and repatriation guidelines intended to clarify the process.  However, Britain’s national collections are still not obliged to follow these guidelines.

New guidelines were published by Arts Council England in August 2022 for museums considering the return of an object. These guidelines encourage museums to consider each request on its individual merits and highlight the "often present rich opportunities for enhancing understanding for all involved".  They take several factors into account, including the museum’s own legal and governance position; the strength of the claimants’ relationship to the object; the object's scientific, educational, cultural, spiritual and historical significance; the interests of actual and cultural descendants; the arrangements for its future display and preservation; and the consequences of retaining or returning the object for all the different stakeholders.  Museums are actively encouraged to develop lasting and meaningful relationships with communities of origin, especially when they identify an obvious continuity between the original community and it’s representatives making the claim.  In November 2021 the Museums Association published additional guidance ('Supporting decolonisation in museums') that supports decolonising practice in each of the UK's four nations. Although decolonising is not all about returning artefacts, both areas of practice may overlap. The guidance on decolonisation encourages museums not to "obscure the ethical imperative to pursue repatriation and restitution in a proactive and collaborative way." 

A museum will not consider the return of an object if conditions for its future display and preservation place it at risk.  Communities requesting the return are always interrogated about these conditions and confirmation they meet appropriate standards for safety and conservation is essential before a restitution is agreed.  

There have been incidents of theft or civil war in countries or communities requesting a return that have prevented museums from agreeing the return of an object in the past. However, safety and environmental conditions around the world are improving and a growing number of new museums, recently completed or still in planning, are now benefitting from the shared skills, knowledge and experience of the wider museum community.  New museums in Africa, in particular, have been drawing on global protocols and universal disciplines to ensure correct environmental conditions and high curatorial standards are met.  The British Museum is just one of several leading museums that offer an international training programme to museum and heritage professionals, focussing on professionals from those countries most in need of support and training.  Courses such as these are helping to drive up standards globally. As these standards improve, so will a museum's confidence to return contested objects.

Yes, but apart from one important exception, not to objects looted, seized or stolen before 1970. Many treaties, declarations, resolutions and conventions have been made by UNESCO, the European Union and the United Nations in efforts to combat the illicit trafficking of looted cultural objects.  But each has met with different degrees of international support and many provisions have ended up being watered down, the result of international compromise.

The instrument that deals most directly with the return of cultural objects (the 1970 UNESCO Convention on the Means of Prohibiting and Preventing the Illicit Import, Export and Transfer of Ownership of Cultural Property) was ratified by different countries at different times. The UK finally acceded to the Convention in 2002. However, this legally-binding instrument still applies only to objects acquired by collections after 1970.  This means that while UK museums accept ‘1970’ as an ethical watershed, refusing to acquire any object removed after that date from its country of origin without full documentation, any object acquired before 1970 is free from legal sanction or repatriation.  

The one exception is for artwork seized or looted by the Nazis. These items are covered in the UK and elsewhere by much stronger legislation.  This is primarily due to an international-wide agreement called the 1998 Washington Conference Principles on Nazi-Confiscated Art.  As a result of the UK signing up to these Principles, Britain introduced its own Holocaust (Return of Cultural Objects) Act 2009.  Ten years later, its life was extended when its 10-year sunset clause was removed and the UK became the first country in the world to allow its national museums to “indefinitely” return Nazi-looted artwork.  No similar legislation covering the return of looted objects from the colonial era exists in law.

No.  Only a small proportion of the greatest treasures in UK museums has attracted claims for restitution.  It is true this proportion includes some highly significant objects, such as the Parthenon Marbles.  It is also true that in the face of continuing demands for restitutions and growing public interest in the restitution debate, the case for retention grows more challenging. However, as demands for restitution are evaluated on a case-by-case basis, the process is unlikely to set off a chain reaction or lead to a widespread dismantling of our museum collections.  The greater number of colonial objects now in UK museums arrived though gifts, bequests, purchases and, sometimes, were acquired directly.  They are not at risk of being lost to the nation.   It’s also quite wrong to imagine that all former colonial countries are pressing for every object of their cultural heritage to be returned.  It’s quite the opposite.  Objects held outside a country’s boundaries play an important role in educating and promoting that nation’s heritage to a wider global audience. 

The simple answer is, our national museums are legally bound by Acts of Parliament to keep their collections together. 

There are very limited grounds when national collections are permitted to ‘dispose’ of an object. Restitution purely to rectify an injustice in the past is not one of them.  For example, the British Museum Act 1963 (Section 5, para 1) allows disposal when the object is a duplicate; when it is damaged or has deteriorated; when the object has been made no earlier than the year 1850 and substantially consists of printed matter; or when, in the opinion of the Museum’s trustees, the object is 'unfit to be retained'.  Is an object that has never been available for study or exhibition 'unfit to be retained'? Is an object seized in violent circumstances also ‘unfit to be retained'?  

It’s striking that no board of trustees would consider acquiring  today any object obtained through an act of plundering or violence.  Yet the same trustees refuse to accept this test of ‘moral unfitness’ should apply to objects acquired before the UK adopted the 1970 UNESCO Convention.  

It's also noteworthy that while obliged by current legislation to keep their collections together, in the past, national collections have sold off (deaccessioned) or given away objects from their collections.  During the 1950s and 1960s, for example, the British Museum sold off a number of Benin Bronzes from their rich collection of Nigerian art.  Thirteen plaques were sold to the Nigerian government on the grounds they were multiple editions (even though they were individually modelled).  In 1964/65 the Victoria and Albert Museum agreed to return the Mandalay regalia, looted by British forces in 1885.

On one level, the repatriation of an object can be seen in the context of larger questions being raised about the changing purpose, function and social role of a museum: about decolonisation, about the way a museum works, who they work with and what they value.  

Today, guidance from the Museums Association encourages museums to forge new "constructive relationships" with representatives of  communities that contributed to the museum's colonial legacies and to inform those representatives of objects in their collection that are relevant to that community.  New guidelines from Arts Council England (published August 2022) also highlight "the opportunity for museums to develop their collections knowledge and research, to build relationships with originating communities, to open up dialogue around contested items and to create opportunities  for discourse and discussion around cultural heritage." This level of engagement would have been unthinkable in the past. 

Collaborative dialogues benefit museums by giving greater meaning to the objects in their collections, they help overcome the fear of telling the factual truth about colonial histories and they help us better understand the consequences of an object's removal.