(The following passage was written in 1986) The legislation of a country recently considered a bill designed to reduce the uncertainty inherent in the ownership of art by specifying certain conditions that must be met before an allegedly stolen work of art can be reclaimed by a plaintiff. The bill places the burden of proof in reclamation litigation entirely on the plaintiff, who must demonstrate that the holder of an item knew at the time of purchase that it had been stolen. Additionally, the bill creates a uniform national statute of limitations for reclamation of stolen cultural property. Testifying in support of the bill, James D, Burke, a citizen of the country and one of its leading art museum directors, specially praised the inclusion of a statute of limitations; otherwise, he said, other countries could seek to reclaim valuable art objects, no matter how long they have been held by the current owner or how legitimately they were acquired. Any country could enact a patrimony law stating that anything ever made within the boundaries of that country is its cultural property. Burke expressed the fear that lead to ruinous legal defense costs for museums. However, because such reclamation suits have not yet been a problem, there is little basis for Burke's concern. In fact, the proposed legislation would establish too many unjustifiable barriers to the location and recovery of stolen objects. The main barrier is that the bill considers the announcement of an art transaction in a museum publication to be adequate evidence of an attempt to notify a possible owner. There are far too many such publications for the victim of a theft to survey, and with only this form of disclosure, a stolen object could easily remain unlocated even if assiduously searched for. Another stipulation requires that a purchaser show the object to a scholar for verification that it is not stolen, but it is a rare academic who is aware of any but the most publicized art thefts. Moreover, the time limit specified by the statute of limitations is very short, and the requirement that the plaintiff demonstrate that the holder had knowledge of the theft is unrealistic. Typically, stolen art changes hands several times before rising to the level in the marketplace where a curator or collector would see it. At that point, the object bears no trace of the initial transaction between the thief and the first purchaser, perhaps the only one in the chain who knowingly acquired a stolen work of art. Thus, the need for new legislation to protect holders of art is not obvious. Rather, what is necessary is legislation remedying the difficulties that legitimate owners of works of art, and countries from which such works have been stolen, have in locating and reclaiming these stolen works.