A 'safe space' to debate colonial legacy? The University of Cambridge Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology and the campaign to return a looted Benin altarpiece to Nigeria

In February 2016, students at the University of Cambridge voted unanimously to support the repatriation to Nigeria of a bronze cockerel looted during the violent British expedition into Benin City in 1897. Rather than initiating a restitution process, however, the college response saw the cockerel, known as Okukor, temporarily relocated to the University’s Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology. This article outlines the discussions that took place during this process, exploring how the Museum was positioned as a safe space in which uncomfortable colonial legacies, including institutionalized racism and rights over cultural patrimony, could be debated. We explore how a stated commitment to post-colonial dialogue ultimately worked to circumvent a call for post-colonial action. Drawing on Stoler’s and Edwards’ discussions of colonial aphasia, this article argues that museums of anthropology risk enabling such circumvention despite, and perhaps as a result of, a commitment to confronting their own institutional colonial legacies

Model Law on Access to Information for Africa and other regional instruments: Soft law and human rights in Africa

The adoption in 2013 of the Model Law on Access to Information for Africa by the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights is an important landmark in the increasing elaboration of human rights-related soft law standards in Africa. Although non-binding, the Model Law significantly influenced the access to information landscape on the continent. Since the adoption of the Model Law, the Commission adopted several General Comments. The AU similarly adopted Model Laws such as the African Union Model Law on Internally Displaced Persons in Addressing Internal Displacement in Africa. This collection of essays inquires into the role and impact of soft law standards within the African human rights system and the AU generally. It assesses the extent to which these standards induced compliance, and identifies factors that contribute to generating such compliance. This book is a collection of papers presented at a conference organised by the Centre for Human Rights, University of Pretoria, with the financial support of the government of Norway, through the Royal Norwegian Embassy in Pretoria. Following the conference, the papers were reviewed and reworked

Second Meeting of the States Parties to the 1970 UNESCO Convention on the Means of Prohibiting and Preventing the Illicit Import, Export and Transfer of Ownership of Cultural Property

The UNESCO Convention on the Means of Prohibiting and Preventing the Illicit Import, Export and Transfer of Ownership of Cultural Property was adopted in Paris on 14 November 1970. It came into force on 24 April 1972. It took over 30 years for the first Meeting of States Parties to the Convention to take place on 15 October 2003. The second meeting, the subject of this report, took place after a shorter period of about nine years, on 20–21 June 2012. A Meeting of States Parties to a treaty is primarily a forum to discuss and agree on measures that can be taken to improve its effectiveness and the realization of the aims and objectives of the instrument. Accordingly, the meeting was tasked with examining in depth the impact of the measures taken by States Parties to the Convention in order to optimize its implementation, and also to consider and approve whatever efficacious measures should be taken for its best functioning.</jats:p

The dynamics of Methodism in Sierra Leone 1860-1911 Western European influence and culture in church development

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