Marc-André Renold, Dr. iur., LL.M. (Yale), studied law and the humanities at the Universities of Geneva and Basel in Switzerland and at Yale University in the USA. Professor Renold is the co-holder of the UNESCO Chair on the international law of the protection of cultural heritage at the University of Geneva, which he established in 2012. He also founded its Art-Law Centre of which he was a Director until August 2023, when he was appointed honorary Professor of the University of Geneva.  Professor Renold lectures on topics connected to art and cultural heritage law in Switzerland and abroad. He has lately been teaching on a regular basis at the LUISS University in Rome.  Marc-André Renold is an Attorney-at-law, Member of the Geneva Bar, and practices mainly in the field of art and cultural heritage law. He has been involved in some of the prominent cultural heritage restitution cases involving claims by non-European States and by victims of persecution and their descendants.  He is the author or co-author of many publications in the field of international and comparative art and cultural heritage law.  Among his achievements with the UNESCO Chair, one can mention the data base ArThemis – reviewing more than 150 cases of dispute resolution in the cultural heritage sector. He is also the founder of the recently established International Platform for the Diplomacy of Cultural Heritage.

Valéry Freland is the Executive Director of the Geneva-based ALIPH Foundation. In this capacity, he created the ALIPH Secretariat in 2018 and has since managed this new organization and contributed to the definition and implementation of its strategy for heritage protection in conflict, post-conflict and crisis areas: in 7 years, ALIPH has supported 500 projects in more than 40 countries. Valéry Freland is a career diplomat of French nationality. In the past, he has held various positions at the French Ministry of Europe and Foreign Affairs, notably in the field of cultural diplomacy. He was also Diplomatic Advisor to the French Minister of Culture and Communication, Frédéric Mitterrand (2009-2010). Prior to joining ALIPH, Valéry Freland was Consul General of France in Boston (2015-2018). He is a graduate of Sciences Po Paris and the Ecole Nationale d’Administration (“Senghor” Class), and holds a master’s degree in law (Panthéon-Sorbonne). He is Officer of the French Ordre des Arts et Lettres.

Marina Schneider is Principal Legal Officer and Treaty Depositary at the International Institute for the Unification of Private Law (UNIDROIT). She has been involved, within the UNIDROIT Secretariat, in the elaboration of the 1995 UNIDROIT Convention on Stolen or Illegally Exported Cultural Objects and of theUNESCO-UNIDROIT Model Provisions on State Ownership of Undiscovered Cultural Objects and is responsible for their promotion and follow-up. Marina Schneider is responsible for the project on private art collections currently on the UNIDROIT’s Work Programme and for the UNIDROIT Convention Academic Project (UCAP). She is the author of the Explanatory Report of the 1995 Convention and several articles on the Convention and more generally on illicit trafficking in cultural property and synergies between relevant international instruments. Marina Schneider is member of the Board of the International Society for Research on Art and Cultural Heritage Law (ISCHAL) and member of the Scientific Committee of the Certificate in Advanced Studies on International Cultural Heritage Law (University of Geneva).