Dr Sophie Vigneron and four Kent LLM students will travel to the UNESCO headquarters in Paris on 18 May, to attend and assist the third meeting of the State Parties to the 1970 UNESCO Convention on the Means of Prohibiting and Preventing the Illicit Import, Export and Transfer of Ownership of Cultural Property.
Students have been given special permission to attend the meeting by the programme specialist and Head of the Division for Heritage at UNESCO, Edouard Planche. The two day visit will provide a unique opportunity for LLM students to understand law in context and witness diplomatic negotiations at an international institution. The meeting will see all State Parties to the Convention represented, alongside international organisations involved in the protection of cultural heritage (such as UNIDROIT and ICOMOS).
The Convention on the Means of Prohibiting and Preventing the Illicit Import, Export and Transfer of Ownership of Cultural Property was adopted in 1970 in response to increasing problems of theft and fraudulent exchange of cultural property. It contains preventative measures and restitutional provisions which operate through a framework of international cooperation, with the Meetings of the States Parties to the Convention the sovereign body providing strategic direction for its implementation. In addition to discussion about effective development and review of bodies responsible for oversight and implementation of the Convention, the third meeting is expected to discuss the devastating impact of looting and illicit trafficking of cultural property on shared heritage, and the actions of State Parties to protect and safeguard cultural heritage at risk.
Dr Sophie Vigneron is a Senior Lecturer in Law at the University of Kent, and is the principal investigator on the AHRC Network on the protection of Cultural Heritage Sites. Her research interest in the area of Cultural Heritage Law involves assessing the efficiency of existing export restrictions of works of art and restitution laws at an international, European and national level and their core relationships with private law (property, criminal, conflict of laws) and public international law in order to propose a coherent art law framework. Dr Vigneron has also been working with a network of European scholars on a Dictionary of Cultural Property. She teaches an undergraduate module in Art Law at Kent, and a postgraduate module in Cultural Heritage Law.