March 26–27, 2004, in St. Louis, Missouri, the Washington University School of Law's Whitney R. Harris Institute for Global Legal Studies and the School of Art hosted the Imperialism, Art and Restitution Conference. The conference brought together many of the world's leading experts on art and antiquities law, museum policy, and the larger cultural context surrounding these fields. The conference organizers chose several particularly controversial case studies to generate debate and discussion around the issues of whether Western states and their museums should return major works of art and antiquities, acquired during the Age of Imperialism, to the countries of origin. The case studies included the Elgin/Parthenon Marbles, the Bust of Nefertiti, and objects protected by the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA). The format produced a lively, interdisciplinary, and sometimes passionate debate that helped crystallize issues and expose complexities but certainly produced no consensus around a simple solution of return or retain.