약탈문화재의 환수와 원소유자 반환의 원칙 -대전지방법원 2016가합102119 서산부석사 불상인도청구사건을 중심으로-

Abstract

In October 2012, an incident occurred, in which two pieces of Korean statues of Buddha, which had been located in Tsushima Island in Japan, were stolen by a grave robber and carried into Korea. Because of this incident, the people’s interest further increased in the repatriation of Korean cultural properties taken out of the country. The Japanese government asked the South Korean government to return them, and Seosan Buseoksa Temple, identified as the original owner of ‘Standing Gilt-bronze Avalokiteshvara Bodhisattva’of the two statues of Buddha, along with Buddhist orders, filed a petition for a provisional injunction and a lawsuit for the transfer of corporeal movables, arguing for not returning that to Japan. Concerning this, Daejon District Court prohibited the transfer of the occupation of the statues of Buddha to Japan until the reasonable acquisition of this by Kanon-ji Temple, Japan, would be confirmed separately, accepting Buseoksa Temple’s request on February 26, 2013. Later, on January 26, 2017, concerning a lawsuit on the merits, requesting for the transfer of corporeal movables, too, the Korean government ruled in favor of the plaintiff of the formal adjudication that asks to transfer the statues of Buddha to the original owner, Seosan Buseoksa Temple, and currently, the trial on appeal is in progress. Then, in the embarrassing situation where Korean cultural properties wandering overseas are carried into Korea by thieves, it is necessary to discuss how the issues of the repatriation of plundered cultural properties and the international protection of cultural properties can be resolved through this incident and whether the verdict of the first trial was reasonable. Discussing this incident, this study would investigate two big ideological flows of views on cultural properties, internationalism and nationalism and describe how the two ideologies have been developed, what position international agreements on cultural properties took, of the two ideologies, and how the present global trend is. In addition, this study would find the implications of this incident, looking at the incident of the theft of Mayan documents at the Louvre Museum in France, committed by a Mexican.