About

Ana Filipa Vrdoljak holds the UNESCO Chair in International Law and Cultural Heritage. She is co-host and co-coordinator of the UNESCO-UNITWIN Network on Culture in Emergencies. She is Professor of Law, University of Technology Sydney. She is President of the International Cultural Property Society (U.S.). She is co-editor of the Oxford Handbook on International Cultural Heritage Law (Oxford University Press, 2020) and The 1970 UNESCO and 1995 UNIDROIT Conventions on Stolen or Illegally Transferred Cultural Property (Oxford University Press, 2024). Professor Vrdoljak is co-organiser of the Cultural Losses, Accountability and Reparations Project, Indigenous peoples and cultural heritage international research and capacity-building initiative, and Women and girls and cultural heritage initiative in the second phase (2023-2027) of the UNESCO Chair program.

Larissa Behrendt AO is a Eualeyai/Kamillaroi woman.  She is a Distinguished Professor of Law and ARC Laureate Fellow at the Jumbunna Indigenous House of Learning at the University of Technology Sydney. She an award-winning author, filmmaker, and host of Speaking Out on ABC Radio. She is trustee of the Australian Museum, is a director of the Sydney Dance Company and Chair of the Community Spirit Foundation. Professor Behrendt is co-organiser of the Indigenous peoples and cultural heritage international research and capacity-building initiative in the second phase (2023-27) of the UNESCO Chair program.

Janet Blake is Associate Professor and Head of Department of Human Rights, Faculty of Law, Shahid Beheshti University (ex-National University), Tehran, Iran. She is a member of the UNESCO Chair for Human Rights, Peace and Democracy. She is co-editor of the 2022 ASIL prize winning The 2003 UNESCO Intangible Heritage Convention: A Commentary (Oxford University Press, 2020), and contributor to The 1970 UNESCO and 1995 UNIDROIT Conventions on Stolen or Illegally Transferred Cultural Property (Oxford University Press, 2024). Professor Blake is co-organiser of the women and girls and cultural heritage international research collaboration of the second phase (2023-2027) of the UNESCO Chair program.

Alessandro Chechi is senior lecturer at the University of Geneva, Université Catholique of Lille and Geneva Academy of International Humanitarian Law and Human Rights. He is a reporter for the International Law in Domestic Courts (ILDC) Oxford University Press project. Dr Chechi is co-editor of The 1970 UNESCO and 1995 UNIDROIT Conventions on Stolen or Illegally Transferred Cultural Property (Oxford University Press, 2024) prepared as part of the first (2019-2022) and second (2023-2027) phases of the UNESCO Chair program.

Yvonne Donders is the Chair of International Human Rights Law and Cultural Diversity in the Department of International and European Law, University of Amsterdam and elected member of the UN Human Rights Committee.  She is member of the Steering Committee of the Netherlands Network of Human Rights Research and Executive Editor of the Netherland Quarterly of Human Rights. Professor Donders is co-organiser of the women and girls and cultural heritage international research collaboration of the second phase (2023-2027) of the UNESCO Chair program.

Francesco Francioni is Professor Emeritus of International Law at the Law Department of the European University Institute, Florence.  He is a member of the Institut de droit international and former Chair of the UNESCO World Heritage Committee.  Professor Francioni is co-editor of the Oxford Handbook on International Cultural Heritage Law (Oxford University Press, 2020) and second edition of The 1972 World Heritage Convention: A Commentary (Oxford University Press, 2023). He is a contributor to The 1970 UNESCO and 1995 UNIDROIT Conventions on Stolen or Illegally Transferred Cultural Property (Oxford University Press, 2024). Professor Francioni is a contributor to the normative instruments on cultural heritage project in the second phase (2023-2027) of the UNESCO Chair program.

Phil Gordon is co-chair (2023-2026) of the Australian Federal Government’s Advisory Committee for Indigenous Repatriation and Board Member of Museums and Galleries of NSW. He is the former Head of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Collections and Repatriation program, Australian Museum. Mr Gordon is an adviser on the Indigenous peoples and cultural heritage international research and capacity-building initiative in the second phase (2023-2027) of the UNESCO Chair program.

Alicja Jagielska-Burduk holds the UNESCO Chair on Cultural Property Law at the Faculty of Law and Administration, University of Opole. Professor Jagielska-Burduk is co-host and co-coordinator of the UNESCO-UNITWIN Network on Culture in Emergencies at Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznan, Poland. She is a mediator for the UNESCO Intergovernmental Committee for Promoting the Return of Cultural Property to Its Countries of Origin or Its Restitution in Case of Illicit Appropriation and an arbitrator for the Court of Arbitration for Art (CafA), The Hague, and founding editor of the Santander Art&Culture Law Review. She is a contributor to The 1970 UNESCO and 1995 UNIDROIT Conventions on Stolen or Illegally Transferred Cultural Property (Oxford University Press, 2024).

Dalee Sambo Dorough serves as the Arctic region member (2023-2026) of the UN Expert Mechanism on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, and a former Expert Member and Chairperson of the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues, Chair of the UN Voluntary Fund for Indigenous Peoples, and International Chair of the Inuit Circumpolar Council. Currently, a Senior Scholar and Special Adviser on Arctic Indigenous Peoples, University of Alaska Anchorage where she was engaged as a Professor of International Relations (2008-2018). She was a contributor to the Oxford Handbook on International Cultural Heritage Law (Oxford University Press, 2020).  Professor Sambo Dorough is co-organiser of the Indigenous peoples and cultural heritage international research and capacity-building initiative as part of the second phase (2023-2027) of the UNESCO Chair program.

Andrzej Jakubowski is Assistant Professor at the Institute of Law Studies of the Polish Academy of Sciences in Warsaw (Poland). He is Rapporteur of the ILA Committee on Safeguarding Cultural Heritage in Armed Conflict and Deputy Editor-in-Chief of the Santander Art and Culture Law Review.  He is a mediator for the UNESCO Intergovernmental Committee for Promoting the Return of Cultural Property to Its Countries of Origin or Its Restitution in Case of Illicit Appropriation and an arbitrator for the Court of Arbitration for Art (CafA), The Hague. Professor Jakubowski is co-editor of The 1970 UNESCO and 1995 UNIDROIT Conventions on Stolen or Illegally Transferred Cultural Property (Oxford University Press, 2024).

Claudia Liuzza is a Rethinking Diplomacy Fellow at the Duke Center for International & Global Studies and affiliated scholar with the UPenn Cultural Heritage Center. She holds a doctorate in Anthropology from Stanford University and Laurea cum Laude in Conservation of Cultural Heritage from the University of Pisa. Dr Liuzza is a collaborator on the World Heritage and Human Rights theme for the global Our World Heritage Initiative of the first phase (2019-2023) of the UNESCO Chair program.

Angela Martins is the Head of the Division of Culture and Sport for the African Union. She coordinates the AU’s activities and policies in respect of cultural protection, cultural development, promotion of creative and cultural industries and use of culture for integration. Ms Martins is an advisor and collaborator on the standard-setting on movable heritage initiative during the second phase (2023-2027) of the UNESCO Chair program.

Dr Alexandra Grey is a Chancellor’s Research Fellow at the University of Technology Sydney. She researches governance in linguistically diverse societies and of linguistic culture, with projects on minority language rights in China; choice of language as freedom of expression; the right to health in relation to public communications in languages other than English; and the role of the state in self-determined Indigenous language renewal. She is author of prize winning Language Rights in a Changing China (De Gruyter 2021). She teaches constitutional law.

Guangyu DING is a visiting scholar at UTS Faculty of Law from September 2023 to September 2024 working on a research project entitled ‘The Theoretical Construction of Cultural Heritage Rights’.  He is currently completing his dissertation at Law School, Renmin University of China with UNESCO Chair collaborator, Professor Yunxia WANG. He got a master’s degree of law in Law School, Renmin University of China. His research interests include cultural heritage law and Chinese legal history. He is working on promotion of cultural heritage and human right. He is the academic assistant of UNESCO Chair on Cultural Heritage Law in Renmin University of China held by Professor WANG Yunxia.

Erika Hernandez Valencia was a visiting scholar at the UTS Faculty of Law from August to October 2023 working on a research project entitled ‘Does community building contribute to sustainable development’. She is currently completing her Masters in Sustainable Development with FLACAM/UNESCO Chair-UNITWIN Network for Sustainable Development, Argentina.

Fatemeh Irannezhadparizi is a visiting scholar at UTS Faculty of Law from July 2022 until July 2024 working on her research project entitled Global Common Good in the Light of the Nature’s Rights Movement’. She is completing her PhD in public international law on the ‘Capacities and Challenges in International Environmental Law to Realize the Idea of Nature’s Rights at Allameh Tabataba’i University Tehran on the topic of sustainable development and Indigenous-local heritage in international law’. She holds a MA in Environmental Law from Shahib Beheshti University, Tehran. She teaches public international law.