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Stephan Doempke studied psychology, cultural anthropology and science of religions in Muenster, Marburg, Wichita/Kansas and Berlin. After an Action Anthropology Project with ceremonial leaders of the Southern Cheyenne in Oklahoma (USA), he has committed himself to the rights of indigenous peoples, a nuclear-free world, and the preservation of natural and cultural heritage, with a particular interest in spiritual traditions and sacred landscapes. In 1989 he joined the founding team of the House of World Cultures in Berlin, and from 1993-1998 coordinated projects in Russia and Central Asia for the German Nature Conservation Union NABU. He supported the revitalization of felt-making in Kyrgyzstan and Mongolia, and marketed Kyrgyz felt carpets. Through organizing exhibitions on Kyrgyz nomadism he understood the realities of the ethnographica market. He was a consultant on nature conservation in Ethiopia, Tajikistan and Montenegro before he became UN Programme Coordinator for Culture and Heritage in Albania in 2008. From 2010-2014 he worked as a World Heritage expert in Gjirokastra, Albania. As founding chairman of World Heritage Watch, he has organized 12 global civil society fora on World Heritage and published a reform agenda for the World Heritage Convention. He is heavily involved in safeguarding museum collections in Ukraine.

Anisha Patel is currently a Governing Council member at Law for Palestine, leading the research and discourse department. Over the last few months, she has been co-leading the design and execution of the Emergency Action Plan, in collaboration with local stakeholders and international experts, undertaking legal analysis, strategic litigation, and submissions to the ICC and the ICJ. She has also been engaged in discourse building activities, including at several UN Human Rights Council sessions. Previously, Anisha has been involved in UNESCO World Heritage Committees and has worked as a UNESCO World Heritage Specialist for governmental agencies developing nomination dossiers, management plans, and attribute maps, while undertaking capacity building activities and stakeholder management programs. She has also worked with the International Centre for the Study of the Preservation and Restoration of Cultural Property leading the development and publication of Community-based Heritage Indicators for Peace – A Tool for Measuring Peace. Anisha Patel is currently a doctoral researcher at the Faculty of Law at Europa-Universität Viadrina, Germany with a focus on international law, identity, and heritage in Palestine. She has a Bachelor’s degree in Architecture, an MA in World Heritage Studies, and an LLM in International Human Rights and Humanitarian Law.

Prof. Dr. Sophie Schönberger holds the Chair of Public Law, Art and Cultural Law at Heinrich Heine University in Düsseldorf, Germany. Sophie Schönberger studied law in Berlin, Rome and Paris. In 2006, she received her doctorate from the Humboldt University of Berlin. After her legal clerkship in Berlin, Venice and Paris, she worked as a temporaryacademic councillor at the Ludwig-Maximilians-University of Munich, where she habilitatedin 2012 with a thesis on “Public Cultural Law. Tangible and Intangible Cultural Works between Protection, Promotion and Value Creation.” In the same year, she became Chair ofConstitutional and Administrative Law, Media Law, Art and Cultural Law at the University ofKonstanz. Since the winter semester 2018/19, she holds the Chair of Public Law, Art and Cultural Law at Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf and is Co-Director of the Institute for German and International Party Law and Party Research (PRUF). Her research focuses on constitutional law, party law, parliamentary law, electoral law, and public cultural law. Sophie Schönberger is a recognized and sought-after expert in party, electoral and parliamentary law. In addition to providing political advice and acting as an expert witness, Schönberger has also been active as a litigator in numerous proceedings before the Federal Constitutional Court since 2018.Architecture, an MA in World Heritage Studies, and an LLM in International Human Rights and Humanitarian Law.

The event is part of the BEYONDREST Conversation Series “Restitution and its Vantage Points: Beyond the Preservation Paradigm.” Beyond Restitution: Heritage, (Dis)Possession and the Politics of Knowledge (BEYONDREST) is an ERC-funded, five-year research project at the Forum Transregionale Studien (Project No. 101045661). More information on the project and the conversation series can he found here.

Views and opinions expressed are however those of the speaker(s) and author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the European Research Council Executive Agency. Neither the European Union, nor the granting authority can be held responsible for them.