By: Dion Hall
April 5th, 2025
Financial Times In SPECPOL
SPECPOL (Special Political and Decolonization Committee) today at CAHSMUN had a hot topic at hand. The topic of the moderated caucus was returning stolen artifacts. For starters, the United Kingdom has roughly 2000 stolen artifacts in their possession, while other countries like France has returned 26 and Portugal 46 (though Portugal refuses to give other back).
During the moderated discussion, France started off by saying the country would like to return all stolen artifacts. The delegate of France also urged other countries like the United Kingdom to return their stolen items. South Africa agrees with these statements and believes that in a 10 year time line ,all artifacts should be returned to the originating nation.
Brazil believes that artifacts should not be returned and instead should remain in museums as they are “sanctuaries for history”. Paraguay agreed with Brazil’s point and also made their own statement saying that the countries need open communication so that mistakes never get repeated again. This comes only after a statement about how after Portugal’s colonization setting the country back decades in development artifacts should not be a top priority.
Overall, the caucus was very interesting and delegates were well spoken. In relation to the stolen artifacts, most of the consensus from the robbed nations is to leave the artifacts where they are in museums. This means that the British will likely keep their stolen historical artifacts while nations whom wish they’d return them are unlikely to receive them.