On 1 to 3 December 2025, the fourth session of the Working Group on the Private Art Collections – Orphan Objects Project was held in hybrid format at the seat of UNIDROIT in Rome. The project is undertaken, as part of UNIDROIT’s Work Programme for the triennial period 2023-2025, in partnership with the Art-Law Centre of the University of Geneva (ALC) and the Fondation Gandur pour l’Art (FGA).
The project aims at developing criteria for dealing with cultural objects lacking any provenance and/or presenting significant gaps in their provenance to prevent them from disappearing to the detriment of the history of art, science, and knowledge. The Working Group is working at elaborating a set of principles or guidelines to assist in addressing the issue of orphan objects, along with practical tools for collections actively seeking to manage their orphan items.
The fourth session started with one day Research Symposium on “Orphan Objects: Curatorial, Ethical, and Legal Aspects”. Multiple experts among which provenance researchers, whether affiliated with a national or government-funded organisation, non-profit organisations, or with provenance research teams in cultural institutions, were invited to answers specific questions. The Symposium was meant to help the Working Group to move forward with envisioning and consolidating a blueprint for a better future for orphan objects. The speakers to the Symposium were Mr Daniel ABIDJO (Heritage curator; PhD student in ‘Heritage Studies’, Benin), Mr Sanjay ADHIKARI (Lawyer, Public Interest Litigator for issues pertaining to Cultural heritage across Nepal), Ms Saskia COUSIN (anthropologist and Professor of Sociology at Paris Nanterre University, affiliated with the SOPHIAPOL Research Centre), Ms Marie DUFLOT (PhD student, Ecole des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales (EHESS), Centre Georg Simmel (EHESS-CNRS, UMR 8131), France), Mr Maxence GARDE (Curator, Antiquities Collection, Calouste Gulbenkian Museum, Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, Portugal), Ms Nancy KARRELS, (Associate Director of Provenance Research and Object Histories at the National Museum of Asian Art, Smithsonian, United States of America), Ms Laurence MAUGER-VIELPEAU (Professor, Private Law and Criminal Sciences, University of Caen-Normandy, France), Mr Jacques SCHUHMACHER (Executive Director of Provenance Research at the Art Institute of Chicago, USA) and Mr Pierre TAUGOURDEAU (Secretary General, Conseil des Maisons de Vente, France). Ms Janet ULPH, Professor Emeritus of Commercial Law, Leicester Law School, University of Leicester, submitted a written paper to the Symposium.
During the fourth session, the Working Group continued to consider the draft Guidelines in the light of the presentations made during the Research Symposium and the documents prepared by the UNIDROIT Secretariat.
The Working Group was also kindly invited on Monday 1st December by H.E. Mr Renato Mosca de Souza, Ambassador of Brazil to Italy, to a guided visit of Palazzo Pamphilj, seat of the Embassy in Piazza Navona.
A report of the fourth session of the Working Group will be published in the coming weeks. The next session of the Working Group is planned to take place in March 2026. More information about the Private Art Collections Project can be found on the UNIDROIT website.
Professor Iacopo Donati is the UNIDROIT/Bank of Italy Chair Holder and is mainly responsible for assisting in the Bank Insolvency project. He is Professor of Corporate and Insolvency Law at the University of Siena, and coordinates the research project ‘Pro.Re.Ba.’ (Proportionating rules on bank crisis prevention and management to the case of retail banks), which has received funding from the Italian Ministry of University. He has previously taught corporate law at the University of Venice ‘Ca’ Foscari’, at the University of Florence and at the University of Rome ‘Tor Vergata’.
rtered Institute of Arbitrators (London). He further holds a post-graduate diploma in law from the Kenya School of Law. Allan is also a scholar from the Hague Academy of International Law.
rofessor Ignacio Tirado was appointed Secretary-General by the Governing Council at its 97th session, and officially took office on 27 August 2018. A national of Spain, Professor Tirado (Commercial, Corporate and Insolvency Law, Universidad Autónoma of Madrid, Spain) holds a PhD from the Universities of Bologna and Autónoma de Madrid and an LLM from the University of London. Professor Tirado has been a Senior Legal Consultant at the World Bank’s Legal Vice-Presidency and Financial Sector Practice for more than nine years, having also consulted for the IMF on insolvency related matters as well as for the Asian Development Bank on commercial legal reform.
A Swedish national, Ms Lena Peters grew up in Italy where she attended an English school. In 1978 she took her Juris Kandidatexamen at Stockholm University followed by a Master of Laws from King’s College, London (1979). Since 1985 she has been with UNIDROIT, first as Research Officer, lastly as Principal Legal Officer, her main duties being Secretary to the Working Group for the Preparation of Principles of International Commercial Contracts, Secretary to the Study Group on Franchising, Secretary to the Committee of Governmental Experts on Franchising.She also collaborated on the project for the preparation of the ELI-Unidroit Model European Rules of Civil Procedure. She is currently Managing Editor of the Uniform Law Review and responsible for publications at UNIDROIT.
Marina Schneider is Principal Legal Officer and Treaty Depositary at UNIDROIT. She studied law at the University of Strasbourg (France) and Paris I – Panthéon Sorbonne. She joined the UNIDROIT in 1987 and was involved in the elaboration and French versions of most UNIDROIT instruments since. She is in charge of the 1995 UNIDROIT Convention on Stolen or Illegally Exported Cultural Objects and of the UNESCO-UNIDROIT Model Provisions on State Ownership of Undiscovered Cultural Objects. She is the author of the Explanatory Report of the 1995 Convention and many articles on the Convention and other international instruments in the field. Ms Schneider is also responsible for the project on private collections and for the UNIDROIT Convention Academic Project (UCAP). She is member of the Board of the International Society for Research on Art and Cultural Heritage Law (ISCHAL).
Professor of Commercial Law, Carlos III University of Madrid. Currently, Sir Roy Goode Scholar at UNIDROIT, Rome, 2021-2022. Chair of Excellence 2017-2018 at University of Oxford (Uc3m- Santander Program), affiliated to Harris Manchester College. Previously Distinguished Visiting Professor and fellow of a number of Academic Institutions. Arbitrator of Madrid Court of Arbitration. Member of ELI (European Law Institute) Council and Executive Committee. Member of the Expert Group of the European Commission on Liability and New Technologies and member of the Expert Group of the European Observatory of Platform Economy; the International Academy of Commercial and Consumer Law; the expert group of the Inclusive Global Legal Innovation Platform for Online Dispute Resolution – UNCITRAL and Hong Kong Department of Justice. Expert of the UNIDROIT Study Group on the MAC Protocol of the Cape Town Convention on International Interests. Delegate of Spain to UNIDROIT for the adoption of the Protocol, delegate of Spain in Working Group VI of UNCITRAL on secured transactions and in Working Group IV on Electronic Commerce. Member of UNIDROIT Working Groups on Enforcement and Warehouse Receipts.
William Brydie-Watson is an Australian lawyer who specialises in secured transactions law and private international law. Before joining UNIDROIT, William was a government lawyer in the Private International Law and International Arbitration section of the Australian Attorney-General’s Department, where he worked primarily on treaty negotiation and the implementation of private international law treaties in Australia. At UNIDROIT, he is primarily responsible for the implementation of the Mining, Agriculture and Construction (MAC Protocol) to the 2001 Cape Town Convention on International Interests in Mobile Equipment and the development of a Model Law on Factoring. William also serves as UNIDROIT’s liaison with the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum and as manager of the Institute’s Scholarship and Internship Programme. Admitted to practice in New South Wales and the High Court of Australia, he has a Bachelor of Arts (honours), a Bachelor of Laws and a Master of Laws from the Australian National University. William also lectures on International Secured Transactions Law at the Eotvos Lorand Faculty of Law in Budapest.