Assessing Damage to Archaeological Heritage in Criminal and Administrative Proceedings

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

This is a very interesting article on an extremely complex topic. The valuation of cultural heritage is important in various forms of art crime and in particular in cases of damage to cultural property. It has been a hotly debated topic in the UK context in the past 5 years and this article, dealing in more depth also with the Spanish situation, sheds light on different ways of dealing with the issue. The article makes the approaches to valuing cultural property damage also accessible to non-lawyers as in particular the more general parts are well written and explain the situation in sufficient detail. Arguing with insurance sums, as one solution proposes, seems a good way of simplifying procedures, though, as the author rightly notes this is not always possible. The various approaches taken by courts are clearly outlined and assessed.

The article would benefit from minor improvements. First, the abstract is unclear and it is not possible to discern the content of the article by reading the abstract. The abstract should hence be amended to reflect better the content and argument presented in the article.

Furthermore, in the second half of the article, the author goes on to explain numerous decisions on the issue of valuation of cultural heritage in damage to property situations and compares different approaches. While the first part of the article is very clear and easy to understand, also for non-lawyers, the second part is not as clear and even legal specialists would have trouble understanding the juxtaposition of the different cases. It would therefore be valuable for the final version of the article to be more transparent of the different legal situations presented, in particular by outlining more details of the cases and using clearer language.

As this journal is not a specialist legal journal the interest of readers would be higher if the explanations were accessible to a non-legal audience. As the article stands it is more valuable for a specialist legal audience.

As the article has a specific focus on Spain it would be an added bonus if this situation was briefly compared to the other legal systems discussed in this article. This would show where the Spanish situation is particular and where more general conclusions can be drawn. While the author clearly considers other jurisdictions in the first half of the article and does partly compare these to Spain, this is not the case to the same extent in the second half of the article and the comparison is not done homogeneously throughout the whole article.

The conclusions could also be expanded to include the divers arguments presented in this article.

However, this is generally a very well written, researched and presented article and I can only recommend these very minor amendments for publication, which I wholeheartedly recommend.

Author Response

Dear Reviewer 1

Many thanks for your suggestions. I have changed the text in order to improve its understanding. All changes are trackable.

Reviewer 2 Report

This is a well written and topical paper. The topic addressed is very timely and undoubtedly interesting to a broader audience. The paper is a useful and valuable contribution to its field, as not much literature has been dedicated so far to the assessment of damage to archaeological heritage in relation to criminal proceedings despite its importance. The arguments are well presented and easy to follow. The reviewer did not detect any major scientific or logical flaws. 

Author Response

Dear Reviewer 2

Many thanks for your report. I also hope this paper can be useful for people who must carry out valuations of damages in archaeological sites.