News | 18 June 2026

Winner of the 2025 Pierre Lalive and John Henry Merryman Fellowship

LALIVE is proud to congratulate Dr Michail Risvas, winner of the 2025 Pierre Lalive and John Henry Merryman Fellowship in Art and Cultural Heritage Law, for his outstanding article: “Arbitrating African cultural heritage disputes”, which is available here.

Dr Risvas’ article explores the growing role of international arbitration in the resolution of disputes relating to African cultural heritage, including claims concerning the restitution and circulation of cultural objects held outside the African continent. The article examines, for the first time in a comprehensive manner, the potential contribution of different forms of international arbitration, including State-to-State arbitration, investment treaty arbitration and commercial arbitration, to the settlement of cultural heritage disputes involving African States and actors.

His work highlights how arbitration may provide a neutral and flexible framework for addressing the legal, ethical, historical, cultural and political dimensions of African cultural heritage disputes, and examines its potential as a mechanism for resolving disputes concerning the return of African cultural objects.

The Pierre Lalive and John Henry Merryman Fellowship in Art and Cultural Heritage Law was established in 2018 by the University of Geneva Art-Law Centre and the International Cultural Property Society, in honour of two eminent scholars in the field, Professors Pierre Lalive and John Henry Merryman. It has been proudly co-sponsored by LALIVE ever since.

The aim of the fellowship is to support the work of emerging scholars active in the field of international cultural heritage law, art law and museum law. It is awarded annually to an author aged under 40 for the best article published in the International Journal of Cultural Property (Cambridge University Press). Each Fellow is hosted by the Art-Law Centre of the University of Geneva for two to four weeks to conduct research in the field and participate in the Art-Law Centre’s activities.

Previous Fellows were:

• 2024: Paul Stewens (Maastricht) for his article “‘Ubirajara’ and the Irritator Belong to Brazil: Achieving Fossil Returns under German Private Law.”
• 2023: Luke McDonagh (London) for his article “Exploring ‘ownership’ of Irish traditional dance music: Heritage or property?”
• 2022: Adnan Almohamad (Syria) for his article “The destruction and looting of cultural heritage sites by Isis in Syria: The case of Manbij and its countryside.”
• 2021: Tamás Szabados (Budapest) for his article “In Search of the Holy Grail of the Conflict of Laws of Cultural Property.”
• 2020: Luke Tattersall (London) for his article “Derailing State Immunity: A Broad-Brush Approach to Jurisdiction under Claims for the Expropriation of Cultural Property.”
• 2019: Tabitha Oost (Amsterdam) for her article “Restitution Policies on Nazi-Looted Art in the Netherlands and the United Kingdom: A Change from a Legal to a Moral Paradigm?”

For more information on the Fellowship, please click here.

 

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