Sophie Vigneron, incoming editor of the International Journal of Cultural Property, interviewed Alex Bauer, who was the journal’s editor from 2003 to 2023. Alex is an Associate Professor of Anthropology at Queens College and The Graduate Center, City University of New York, and Associate Director of the Sinop Region Archaeological Project, an interdisciplinary archaeological and heritage project on the landscapes and seascapes of the Black Sea coastal community of Sinop (Turkey).

International cultural heritage regimes such as the World Heritage Convention have faced increasing scrutiny with regard to the impact of heritage governance on local communities. An oft-posited solution to this problem is to increase the possibilities for these communities to participate in decisions that will potentially affect the heritage they live in, with, or around. For international lawyers, this discussion is usually framed through the lens of the right to take part in cultural life guaranteed by human rights law. This case note reflects on the Final Report of the International Law Association’s Committee on Participation in Global Cultural Heritage Governance, which analyzes the current state of the law on these issues and formulates several proposals for its future development. The case note underlines the potentialities of human rights-based approaches to heritage management and the importance of adopting a cross-sectoral approach to participation in international governance.

While I believe that the authors, Emiline Smith and Erin Thompson, have legitimate concerns regarding the theft of cultural objects, I consider that, in the article “A Case Study of Academic Facilitation of the Global Illicit Trade in Cultural Objects: Mary Slusser in Nepal”, International Journal of Cultural Property (2023), 1–20, the authors present a number of serious misrepresentations.