Clooney’s Marble Mission

Amid fresh diplomatic gridlock, George Clooney has once again thrust the Elgin Marbles into the spotlight — and this time, he’s doubling down on their return to Greece.

The actor, director, and long-time cultural advocate is renewing his campaign, joined by his wife, international human rights lawyer Amal Clooney, to see the contested artefacts removed from the British Museum and restored to Athens. His statement, delivered last week to Greece’s Ta Nea newspaper, comes at a time of stalled negotiations between British Museum chairman George Osborne and the Greek government.

“They’re going to come back. I know they are,” Clooney declared. “My wife and I both have worked to get the Parthenon Marbles back to Greece. We’ll keep pushing until it happens. There’s no question about it.”

The Elgin Marbles sculptures carved in the 5th century BCE and removed from the Parthenon under controversial circumstances in the 1800s — have long symbolized the fraught debate over cultural restitution. Britain maintains legal control over the artefacts, while Greece insists they were taken illegitimately under Ottoman occupation and must be returned as a matter of heritage justice.

The British Museum is legally prohibited from permanently giving up items in its collection, meaning that only a temporary loan has been offered — a proposition Greece has consistently rejected, arguing it implies British ownership.

Amal Clooney has lent her legal weight to the issue, having authored a 600-page report in 2014 outlining Greece’s case under international law. Though the Greek government did not formally adopt her recommendations, she later incorporated them into her book Who Owns History?, reframing the debate as a global moral imperative.

Despite celebrity support — from Stephen Fry to Liam Neeson — and UNESCO’s 2022 assertion that the UK holds an obligation to return the Marbles, political tides remain resistant. British officials, including former PM Boris Johnson and current leadership, argue that returning the Marbles might open a "slippery slope" that risks emptying museums across the UK.

As it stands, the impasse continues — but Clooney remains unwavering. His campaign is not just about stone and statute, but about what he sees as a long-overdue act of cultural reconciliation.