De Montfort Precedent (2018)
Definition
The return by De Montfort University Leicester of skeletal remains (Asaru-Ojo) to the Ogoni community in Nigeria, conducted voluntarily under the Human Tissue Act 2004's deaccession permission without statutory mandate. The first major UK case of return to a West African community.
- Year
- 2018
- Institution
- De Montfort University Leicester
- Remains
- Skeletal remains known as Asaru-Ojo
- Recipient
- The Ogoni community, Nigeria
- Legal basis
- Voluntary deaccession under the Human Tissue Act 2004, no statutory mandate
Common questions
Why is this case described as a precedent when it was not legally mandated?+
It established that a UK institution could voluntarily initiate repatriation of skeletal remains to a West African community using existing deaccession powers, without a court order or a NAGPRA-style statute compelling it, which gave later institutions a working model to follow on similar grounds.
How does this case compare to NAGPRA-driven repatriations in the United States?+
NAGPRA creates a legal obligation on US federal agencies and museums to repatriate to federally recognised tribes on request. The De Montfort case had no equivalent statutory duty; it relied on the institution's own decision under the Human Tissue Act's permissive deaccession provisions.
Related terms
- Bass Donated Skeletal Collection
- A consent-based skeletal collection of over 1,750 individuals at the University of Tennessee Knoxville, established by William Bass in 1981. All individuals...
- Cultural Affiliation (NAGPRA)
- The link, established by a preponderance of evidence, between a present-day tribe or Native Hawaiian organisation and human remains or cultural items...
- Culturally Unidentifiable Remains
- Human remains in US museum and agency collections whose cultural affiliation with any present-day tribe cannot be established by the preponderance-of-evidence standard....
- Hamann-Todd Collection
- A skeletal reference collection of approximately 3,100 individuals at the Cleveland Museum of Natural History, accumulated 1893 to 1939 from unclaimed bodies...
- NAGPRA
- The Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (Public Law 101-601, 1990), a US federal statute requiring museums and federal agencies to...
- Population Affinity
- The preferred modern forensic-anthropological term for the relationship between an unidentified individual's skeletal morphology and a modern reference population. Replaces the older...
- Terry Collection
- A documented skeletal collection at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History (Washington DC), assembled from cadavers donated to Washington University's anatomy...
- UNDRIP
- The UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (A/RES/61/295, 2007), adopted by 143 states. Articles 11, 12, and 31 affirm indigenous...
- Willed-Body Donation
- The voluntary, pre-mortem consent by an individual to donate their remains to a specific research programme after death. Distinguished from anatomical donation...