Sophie Starrenburg

Please join us next week for this event on MONDIACULT, co-organised with @asilorg.bsky.social's Cultural Heritage and the Arts Interest Group! Speakers include Beatriz Barreiro Carril, Jorge Sánchez Cordero, J.P. Singh, and UN Special Rapporteur Alexandra Xanthaki.

www.asil.org/event/mondia...

Relooted: the South African video game where players take back artefacts from western museums Creators say they’re offering Africans a ‘hopeful, utopian feeling’ of retrieving objects looted by colonial armies

Had to post about this #restorativejustice #videogame..: www.theguardian.com/games/2026/f...

Please join us for our pre-conference IG workshop in Málaga on 3 September. Interest Group workshops are a great way to get to know other scholars in your area of research, and the Annual Conference is always fun! If you have any questions about submitting an abstract - feel free to reach out.

Climate Change, Sea-Level Rise, and Cultural Rights: The Case of Bonaire On the 28th of January, the District Court of the Hague rendered its judgment in the case of Greenpeace v. the Netherlands. The case addressed the Dutch State’s mitigation and adaptation obligations t...

Climate Change, Sea-Level Rise, and Cultural Rights: The Case of Bonaire | by Flore Heinrich and Sophie Starrenburg

Climate Change, Sea-Level Rise, and Cultural Rights: The Case of Bonaire On the 28th of January, the District Court of the Hague rendered its judgment in the case of Greenpeace v. the Netherlands. The case addressed the Dutch State’s mitigation and adaptation obligations t...

Flore Heinrich and I have co-authored a blog on @ejiltalk.bsky.social on the recent judgment in the Bonaire case, focusing on how the District Court of The Hague approached cultural rights in the context of climate change and implications for future litigation: www.ejiltalk.org/climate-chan....

Likewise @culturalheritage.bsky.social!

Fascinating new ruling in the case of @greenpeace.nl vs Netherlands with the court holding that NL had not fulfilled its duty to adapt Bonaire to climate change & in so doing had discriminated against it, with the court drawing attention to the failure to plan to adapt Bonairean cultural heritage 1/

The fact that impacts on cultural heritage have been explicitly included as part of the Court's considerations on the Dutch state's breach of articles 8 and 14 is thus particularly significant, and a welcome development. Looking forward to reading the whole judgment!

In doing so, the District Court picks up on a thread which was unfortunately neglected in the recent ICJ Advisory Opinion, but which has been discussed by other bodies (e.g. in the Billy case before the Human Rights Committee).

While there is a lot to comment on here, of particular interest are the Court's statements on cultural heritage. The Court thus noted that climate change will impact both tangible and intangible forms of cultural heritage on Bonaire, mentioning threats due to flooding and sea-level rise.

Groundbreaking: the District Court in The Hague has just held that The Netherlands is in violation of articles 8 and 14 of the ECHR for failing to take (timely) climate mitigation and adaptation measures with respect to #Bonaire, in a case brought by #Greenpeace on behalf of the island's residents.

Looking forward to meeting international law friends old and new at #ESIL2025!

Catherine O’Rourke is looking for a new (three-year) postdoc for her ERC project on the role of care in international law (deadline: 15 Sept).

my.corehr.com/pls/dcurecru...

Vacature: Belangenbehartiger met secretaristaken bij Coalitie Wadden Natuurlijk - Het Groninger Landschap Draag jij de Waddenzee een warm hart toe en ben je een strategische verbinder met gevoel voor natuurbeleid? Dan zijn wij op zoek naar jou!

Vacature: belangenbehartiger Waddenzee (3 dgn p/w)

Zeven natuurorganisaties zoeken een strategische verbinder met hart voor natuur & beleid. Werk je graag aan thema’s als biodiversiteit, klimaat & kustontwikkeling?

👉 Solliciteer vóór 31 aug via: www.groningerlandschap.nl/vacatures

The ICJ "for the first time explicitly acknowledged the legal standing of all States in relation to obligations erga omnes (in the sense of Article 48(1)(b) ASR). Until now, the Court’s decisions on collective obligations had been confined to obligations erga omnes partes arising under treaties." 👇

This is SO important. The International Court of Justice affirms that the failure to phase out #FossilFuels can constitute an internationally wrongful act, giving way to #ClimateReparations for related harm. 🔥
Truly a new dawn for climate action and accountability. ⚖️ #ClimateJusticeAtTheICJ

The #ICJ advisory opinion covers a lot: customary status of climate change-related obligations, what due diligence means for adaptation/mitigation measures, the impact of sea-level rise on statehood, what types of fossil fuel-related activities might constitute an internationally wrongful act. 1/6

The 47th meeting of the World Heritage Committee is at UNESCO until 7/16, & is streaming live. Development, environmental & climate pressures & resilience are being discussed & new site nominations voted on.
🌏 #climateheritage #natureculture
Docs & livestream here: whc.unesco.org/en/sessions/...

Hot on the heels of the advisory opinion by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights on 3 July confirming obligations on states, the International Court of Justice #ICJ Advisory Opinion #AO on #climatechange to be delivered on 23 July. One to watch!

These beads are beautiful, and this trade wasn't just one-way!
At Iron Age Hama, western Syria, amber beads have been found that were produced on the Baltic coast.

(£) doi.org/10.15184/aqy...

Conservationists call for Lake District to lose Unesco world heritage status Campaigners say designation promotes unsustainable sheep farming at expense of nature recovery and local communities

Interesting argument to revoke the WHS status of the Lake District - mass tourism and monoculture farming are indeed important threats to address to ensure biodiversity conservation and sustainable development for cultural landscapes
www.theguardian.com/environment/...

One of the best things about working in cultural heritage law? Our conferences have awesome field trips 😎 pictured: Gyeongbokgung Palace in Seoul.

A reminder that our workshop on cultural heritage and climate change will be taking place next week! There are still some spots available, so do register if you would like to join the discussion.

A reminder that our workshop on cultural heritage and climate change will be taking place next week! There are still some spots available, so do register if you would like to join the discussion.

Join us in Leiden on May 16th for a workshop on heritage reparations! My contribution asks what Dutch water heritage looks like when viewed from Jakarta.

The threat to Sudan’s cultural heritage | Apollo Magazine Reports of looting at the Sudan National Museum were confirmed last month as government forces retook Khartoum. Rennan Lemos weighs up the potential losses

A significant part of the Sudan National Museum’s collections come from the UNESCO campaign of the 1960s and ’70s to salvage ancient artefacts from areas to be flooded for dams. The looting of those collections is the undoing of those efforts, writes Rennan Lemos

Please do touch: Norwich Sainsbury Centre asks visitors to interact with art Centre wants people to ‘release the power’ of living entities through interaction and lift museums out of Victorian era

Somewhat reminiscent of this story from a few years ago, in which visitors to the Sainsbury Centre in Norwich were encouraged to hug the museum’s Henry Moore statue: www.theguardian.com/culture/2023...

RM*[restitution matters] News, publications and events about collections from former colonial territories and their future

H/t to Restitution Matters for the link - unfortunately not yet here on Bluesky, but you can give them a follow on Facebook or LinkedIn or their website: restitutionmatters.org

Indigenous Australian shell dolls let out for children’s play at UK museum Twelve dadikwakwa-kwa given to Manchester Museum on condition they are not permanently kept behind glass

What a lovely story: “The 12 dadikwakwa-kwa shell dolls … have been given by the Indigenous Australian Anindilyakwa community to a UK museum on one condition – that children play with them once a year.” www.theguardian.com/culture/2025...

Saying goodbye to tobogganing

#ClimateEmergency