This article examines how State-created language classifications render ethnoculturally distinct peoples invisible within cultural rights frameworks and heritage governance. Focusing on the Boarisch (Bavarian) and Schwäbisch (Swabian) languages in southern Germany, this work argues that the distinction between “language” and “dialect” is not a neutral technical classification but a form of political–cultural governance and a strategy of suppression that determines visibility, eligibility for cultural protection, and access to institutional support. The resulting marginalization and assimilation have also been conceptualized as forms of structural linguistic genocide. Drawing on linguistic Gutachten (expert reports), submissions to United Nations mechanisms, UNESCO cultural policy frameworks, the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages (ECRML), and Fourth World Indigenous scholarship, the article shows how cultural nonrecognition weakens intergenerational transmission, limits public participation, and excludes historically rooted languages from formal monitoring and protection. This work further shows that cultural rights indicators can reproduce invisibility and erasure when they assess only State-recognized cultural categories. The author argues that meaningful cultural and human rights implementation requires scrutiny not only of access to existing frameworks but also of the classifications that determine which peoples, languages, and cultural realities become visible in the first place.

Since the early 1960s, folklore has been on the agenda of two powerful international organizations: the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) and the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO). Their overt intent has been to protect folklore from perceived abuses, but their work also had the aim of making the licensing of traditional arts an internationally marketable good. In this article I outline the premise for folklore’s entry on the agenda of international relations in the twentieth century and its fate since then. The article documents some of the efforts toward creating a global licensing scheme for folklore using intellectual property regulations. This proved to be problematic when it came to traditional culture. I identify two positions in this regard: on the one hand that the lack of protection for folklore constitutes a gap to be covered, and on the other that folklore is a bad fit for intellectual property.

In 2024, Belize marked the 130th anniversary of the Ancient Monuments Protection Ordinance of 1894, the nation’s first formal cultural heritage protection law. This ordinance laid the foundation for a comprehensive legal framework aimed at preserving Belize’s rich and diverse cultural heritage. Despite having one of the most extensive heritage protection systems in the Americas, Belize continues to face serious threats, including looting, theft, and vandalism. This legal milestone offers a critical moment for reflection on the evolution of heritage protection in the country. This article provides a historical analysis of Belize’s national and international legislative developments in heritage conservation. It also assesses the effectiveness of current heritage policies and highlights persistent challenges. Drawing from this evaluation, the study proposes strategic recommendations to enhance Belize’s capacity to safeguard its cultural and historical patrimony, ensuring its preservation for future generations amid ongoing threats and global heritage protection trends.

This is a conference report for “Hermeneutics of Restitution, Reparation, and Redress: The Case of Cultural Property,” hosted on 9 and 10 April, 2026, at the University of Bonn, Center for Dependency and Slavery Studies. Led by Prof. Dr. Matthias Weller of the University of Bonn, Faculty of Law and Economics, this hybrid, international conference featured twenty-five panelists from a range of disciplines who discussed the restitution of cultural property in a variety of institutional and cultural contexts. The aim of this conference was to use the case of cultural property to inform the development of reparatory measures for historical injustices and proceed toward a general theory of post-dependency remedies. The conference engaged with several manifestations of restitution, reparation, and redress to produce new knowledge that drives developments in the field. Its investigation into the hermeneutics of these practices, their precise purpose, and their implications for policymakers and advocates revealed insights from a variety of disciplinary perspectives, with each session building upon the last to paint a broader picture of the application of these practices in the domain of cultural heritage and beyond. Two of the most critical sources of knowledge production were, first, the temporal limitations of these remedies in cases of historical injustice, and second, the tension between the symbolic remedial gestures and material transfers of power. These themes emerged as throughlines throughout the conference to inform the possible futures of these remedies in practice. The conference thus developed primary elements of a general critical theory of post-dependency remedies.

The 1972 World Heritage Convention is one of the world’s most widely adopted treaties, providing for the international protection of world cultural and natural heritage that is of outstanding universal value to humankind. While the treaty has enjoyed some significant successes in the protection of heritage around the world, the criteria for assessing and inscribing cultural and natural properties create significant obstacles to meaningful engagement with and recognition of Indigenous relationships with land. Indigenous Peoples have argued that the separation of cultural and natural heritage under the convention is artificial and reifies a problematic nature/culture dichotomy that is inconsistent with the inseparable relationship between Indigenous Peoples, culture, and their lands and waters. Adopting the frame of political ontology, this article explores tensions between Indigenous ontological assertions and the current operation of the World Heritage Convention. The article examines the case study of the Pimachiowin Aki World Heritage property, showing how the World Heritage Advisory Bodies are working to improve engagement with Indigenous ontologies, despite barriers created by inscription criteria. Finally, the article provides pathways forward for a more meaningful and holistic recognition of Indigenous Peoples in World Heritage through amendments to criteria to align with emerging practice.

For Indigenous peoples in voluntary isolation (PIACI: Pueblos Indígenas en Aislamiento y en Contacto Inicial), cultural heritage cannot be separated from territorial mobility. Their seasonal migrations encode sophisticated ecological knowledge, resource management practices, and spiritual relationships that constitute irreplaceable intangible heritage facing extinction. This paper contributes to PIACI protection and the epistemic reconstitution of Indigenous ontologies. Although PIACI are present across Amazonian countries, we focus on Peru because the country established the world’s first comprehensive protection framework, which nevertheless reproduces coloniality in its legal design. We analyze the Indigenous concept of “territorial corridors”—vast interconnected territories where PIACI circulate that transcend administrative boundaries—as a decolonial legal innovation. Drawing from collaborative research with Peruvian Indigenous organizations and grounded in the 2024 Tagaeri and Taromenane Inter-American Court decision, we develop juridical foundations for recognizing territorial corridors and “itinerant Indigenous property,” challenging Western sedentary property frameworks and demonstrating how legal systems can evolve to protect cultural diversity in motion.

This article examines how national laws determine which cultural property receives formal heritage protection by comparing five legal systems: Italy, Australia, Japan, the United States of America, and Peru. By mapping national heritage attribution frameworks that distinctly blend intrinsic and contextual values on an intrinsic–contextual spectrum, we show how heritage attribution varies widely and reflects each country’s legal traditions. Italy relies on expert-led assessments of material authenticity, while Australia incorporates Indigenous traditions and communal aesthetic perspectives. Japan operates two separate regimes—one expert-led, the other narrative-driven. The United States applies technical criteria for intrinsic assessment, yet it allows for contextual interpretation in practice. The heritage attribution framework of Peru combines both intrinsic and contextual approaches, as well as their mixtures. That said, heritage attributes associated with intrinsic values are highly detailed; three distinct categories focus specifically on the material and aesthetic aspects of cultural property. Our comparative legal analysis examines whether a genuine tension exists between intrinsic and contextual values in national heritage attribution—a question that remains underexplored in legal scholarship. We conclude with recommendations for inclusive heritage attribution criteria and call for further comparative research on extending our intrinsic–contextual spectrum of heritage values.

In this paper I examine the Itaipu Dam in Paraguay as an industrial heritage complex comprising energy infrastructure, environmental governance, and conservation landscapes. Through the submergence of the Guairá Falls and the displacement of Avá Guaraní communities, I argue that the dam exemplifies “authoritarian terraforming,” the large-scale remaking of landscapes and lifeworlds as part of state-led development. Within this context, I introduce the concept of “green heritage” to analyze how ecological destruction and territorial dispossession are reframed through conservation initiatives that operate as post-extractive governance regimes legitimizing infrastructural violence while producing curated forms of ecological peace. Finally, I show how Indigenous territorial ontologies expose the limits of conservation framed as repair and caution against forms of conservation that reproduce exclusion and dispossession.

A group of students at University College London’s (UCL) Institute of Archaeology critically examined the Petrie Palestinian Collection (PPC) to explore colonial legacies embedded in Western institutions. This paper reflects on our student-led initiative to decolonize the PPC and foregrounds Palestinian experiences with the collection. Motivated by the ongoing destruction of Palestinian heritage, we sought to challenge exclusionary institutional practices. We argue institutions like UCL have a scholarly and ethical responsibility to move beyond tokenistic gestures and actively engage with source communities. Despite UCL’s rhetoric promoting decolonization, our project faced significant institutional resistance, revealing the limits of current approaches. We critique the hypocrisy of institutions that continue to benefit from colonial-era collections while avoiding accountability. This study therefore calls for a radical rethinking of practices to center Palestinians in the stewardship of their cultural heritage, demanding reparative action from Western institutions.

The rise of the internet, especially social media, has amplified international trafficking and driven demand for unique cultural heritage, including mummified humans and animals. However, these preserved remains pose health and biosecurity risks due to the toxicity of embalming methods and/or suboptimal storage that can promote microbial growth. This article investigates these risks by analyzing 128 online posts from Meta platforms, e-commerce sites, webstores, and auction houses. We reveal that mummified remains sold online exhibit signs of biodeterioration, yet sellers provide no safety guidance, suggesting limited awareness or deliberate disregard of hazards. Posts also reveal noncompliance with postal regulations, underscoring the need for clearer and consistently enforced shipping policies. Until more effective measures are implemented, the public should remain vigilant and report sales of mummified remains to relevant authorities and professional bodies. Improved oversight and education are therefore essential to safeguard public health and preserve archaeological remains.

The Abidjan School of Fine Arts, like any national art institution, functions as a generator of artistic canons – both imposing and teaching established norms while providing a space for these canons to be challenged and reshaped. This article revisits the understudied institutional history of the Abidjan School, founded in 1962, through this lens. It explores how the School initially mirrored French academic traditions as a strategic means of asserting national prestige. However, thanks to the initiatives of UNESCO advisor Albert Botbol, the School became a critical site for the reimagination of Ivorian Indigenous identity, particularly through the emergence of the Vohou Vohou movement in the 1970s and 1980s. This movement, characterized by a rejection of European academic formalism and the embrace of Indigenous materials and spontaneous techniques, marked a critical departure from colonial influences and became emblematic of national sovereignty and postcolonial reassertion. Ultimately, this article questions the role of imitation in postcolonial schools.

In 2011, the Waitangi Tribunal, a permanent commission of inquiry into Crown breaches of the Treaty of Waitangi, recommended reforms to Aotearoa New Zealand’s intellectual property law to recognize Māori authority over mātauranga Māori (Māori knowledge) and taonga (culturally valuable objects). This article uses the case of the haka Ka Mate to argue that the Government’s failure to respond adequately means that Aotearoa New Zealand’s intellectual property system still fails to protect mātauranga Māori and taonga sufficiently. It highlights the limitations of existing statutory mechanisms and the delays in the Māori-Crown work program to respond to the Waitangi Tribunal. The article endorses the Taonga Record Framework, a tikanga Māori-based (Māori customary law) sui generis model, as a culturally grounded and legally viable means of safeguarding taonga and kaitiaki (guardian) relationships. It assesses its potential to support tino rangatiratanga and provide a basis for future law and policy reform.

This case note examines the most recent ruling of the District Court of Limassol, delivered on 4 March 2025, in the long-running litigation arising from the seizure of underwater cultural heritage by Cypriot authorities in December 2015. After outlining the factual background of the dispute, the claims advanced by the parties and the court’s reasoning and decision, the note proceeds to a critical assessment of the judgment. Particular attention is paid to the broader legal and practical implications of the ruling and to the extent to which it may inform approaches to the protection of underwater cultural heritage not only in Cyprus and the Eastern Mediterranean Sea but also in a wider international context.

Along with “authenticity,” the criterion of “integrity” is used to evaluate and inscribe all World Cultural and Natural Heritage sites. However, ongoing debates in scholarly, organisational, and political circles reveal much confusion in the interpretation and application of integrity. This confusion is compounded by its common reference as “visual integrity” in World Heritage Committee discussions and inscriptions, despite the absence of this term in the Operational Guidelines that govern these matters. The studyis uncovering the historical connection between integrity and theories on the unity of a work of art, rooted in normative and homogenizing aesthetics. Furthermore, this paper analyzes two exemplary applications of integrity in the inscriptions of two World Cultural Heritage sites: Mbanza Kongo in Angola and Writing-on-Stone in Canada. Through analysis, the current application of integrity is associated with the perpetuation of a homogenizing lens through which heritage sites are visualized.

Cultural heritage plays a central role in shaping history, identity, and power relations, and it is particularly vital for Indigenous peoples, for whom heritage is integral to cultural survival. In Indigenous contexts, colonial histories and enduring power imbalances have normalized practices of cultural appropriation through which dominant cultural groups exploit Indigenous heritage. While Indigenous peoples have long mobilized against appropriation, sometimes succeeding in claims to have their appropriated heritage returned to them, discussions on restitution have largely focused on tangible heritage. By contrast, the restitution of intangible cultural heritage (ICH), despite its importance and vulnerability to misappropriation, remains underexplored. This article addresses this gap by reappraising restitution and expanding its scope to encompass ICH. Acknowledging the nonexclusionary and nonrivalrous nature of intangible heritage, it argues that restitution can operate through the return of control over appropriated heritage rather than its impossible physical return. The article conceptualizes restitution of control across three interrelated dimensions: participation in heritage decision-making, stewardship and assurance of respect, and voice in shaping heritage narratives. It contends that restitution of control offers a viable and culturally appropriate form of redress for the harms of appropriation and a means of addressing the structural imbalances that enable it.

In an era of intensifying global interconnection and mounting pressure for historical reckoning, repatriation1 has emerged as a critical arena where museums navigate the fraught intersections of cultural diplomacy and sovereignty.2 Once framed primarily as a legal or ethical imperative, the restitution of cultural property now functions as a strategic site of negotiation3 that compels museums to redefine their roles within transnational networks of cultural governance. As institutions historically tasked with the stewardship of contested objects, museums today operate as diplomatic actors engaged in processes that transcend national boundaries4 and implicate broader structures of international cooperation and historical accountability, an evolution that mirrors ongoing efforts to redefine the very role of museums within global institutions such as the International Council of Museums (ICOM).5 This paper situates repatriation as a distinctly political practice, one shaped by transnational pressures, contested sovereignties, and shifting institutional roles.6 As Neil MacGregor has noted in A History of the World in 100 Objects, museums use objects to tell stories about human civilization, power, and identity; the possession and narration of those objects, then, becomes central to how institutions assert authority and interpret the nation.7

This article explores the intersection of Indigenous cultural heritage and international intellectual property (IP) law. Drawing on personal narrative, community memory, and institutional experience, it traces how, despite colonial legacies embedded within global IP regimes, Indigenous Peoples have carved out space for agency and influence through diplomatic engagement in international forums such as the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO). The article narrates and examines the evolution of Indigenous participation within WIPO’s Intergovernmental Committee on Intellectual Property and Genetic Resources, Traditional Knowledge, and Folklore (IGC), culminating in the landmark adoption of the 2024 WIPO Treaty on Intellectual Property, Genetic Resources, and Associated Traditional Knowledge. Through the lens of “Indigenous diplomacy,” it argues that Indigenous advocates have not only contested exclusion but also reshaped aspects of legal norms, contributing to a broader decolonial movement that seeks justice, recognition, and the right to control and benefit from their intellectual and cultural heritage.