MA and Post Graduate in Architecture at the University ‘La Sapienza’ in Rome. Since 1984, a member at the Board of Architects of Rome, he is the President of Alchemia Project Associates an architects associate firm based in Rome. After over a decade spent doing research in Latin America with a grant from the Italian CNR and coordinating international cooperation projects for the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, he managed several international projects gaining a vast experience in: 1. Institutional capacity building and reform, mostly focusing on Culture and Cultural Heritage conservation and promotion; 2. Heritage Management Planning and Risk preparedness; 3. Bilateral and multilateral negotiation with national and local authorities; 4. Urban Rehabilitation of historic city centres; 5. Creating job opportunities for underprivileged social sectors, including Gender and Youth. He organised and implemented several thematic international focus groups, conferences, workshops and trainings. He consults and/or managed international programmes and initiatives for the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Italian Foreign Trade Commission, the Italian Ministry of Cultural Heritage and Activities, and Tourism, the World Bank and the European Commission. Free lecturer in several Italian and European Universities on cultural heritage and EU funded project design & management.

Anne Webber, together with David Lewis, is founder and Co-Chair of the Commission for Looted Art in Europe (CLAE) and co-founder and Director of the Central Registry of Looted Cultural Property 1933-1945 at www.lootedart.com, set up in 2001 as an independent charitable body under the auspices of the Oxford Centre for Hebrew and Jewish Studies. The Registry is an international research centre and online repository of detailed research, news and information from 49 countries and an onine database of 25,000 objects. Anne Webber was a member of the drafting team of Council of Europe Resolution 1205 (1999) on the restitution of looted cultural property in Europe, on the organising committee of the Vilnius International Forum 2000 and the Prague Conference 2009 and is a member of the Advisory Council of the European Shoah Legacy Institute. She was a member of the British Spoliation Advisory Committee which supervised the provenance research work of British museums throughout its term of 1999-2008. She was a member of the Hunt Museum Review Group and is on the Executive Board of the International Research Portal for Records Related to Nazi-Era Cultural Property. She founded and chaired the UK's International Tracing Service (ITS) Stakeholder Committee which negotiated the UK's taking a digital copy of the ITS records to be housed at The Wiener Library, London. She is a member of the UK Government Delegation to the International Commission which governs the ITS, and is a member of The Wiener Library's ITS Oversight Committee. She is a Governor of the Oxford Centre for Hebrew and Jewish Studies, President of the Jewish Book Council and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts.

Fr. started education at the Government Primary School till Class III, when, at the age of 9, he entered the Malta Lyceum. With the encouragement of Dun Gorg Preca he joined the Dominican Order in 1945. He spent three years at the Dominican House of Studies in Rabat and was then sent to “Hawkesyard”, Staffordshire, and later to “Blackfriars”, Oxford (1948-1952). Went to Rome (1952-54) where he obtained his S.Th.B. and Dip.Sc.Soc. He returned to Rome for another two years and obtained his Lectorate and Licentiate in Sacred Theology and a Doctorate in Social Sciences. He also attended the State University in Rome and obtained a Diploma in Art History. Later he also obtained a B.A. Hons. Degree in Art History from the University of London. He also followed courses at the Sorbonne and at the Ecole de Louvre, Paris, (1963 and 1966); at the University of Florence (1965 and 1968); at the Brera, Milan, and at the Fondazione Cini, Venice, (1965). Working on a thesis for the Degree of D.Litt. at Florence University. 

In 1962 he was elected Associate of the Royal Historical Society, London. He is a member of the Accademia Tiberina and was awarded the French Decoration “Chevalier dans l`Ordre des Arts et des Lettres”, the Russian “Order of Lomonosov” and “Insignia of Merit”, and the Florence “Beato Angelico” Medal. He is also Knight of Grace, O.S.J. Fr Zerafa was awarded Art Scholarships by the Italian Government on the occasion of Malta`s Independence and again in 1968. He visited museums in the United States on an International Visitors Program; worked at the Louvre, Paris, on a Council of Europe Fellowship; had a British Council Grant in 1967 and a German Government Bursary sponsored by Inter Nationes. He was also invited to the Soviet Union as Co-Founder of the Maltese-Soviet Friendship Society. Fr Zerafa was Secretary and Senior History and Literature Master at St Albert`s College, Valletta, (1954-62); Professor of Social Philosophy and Sacred Art at the Dominican House of Studies, Rabat; Lecturer in Fr. Marius Zerafa O.P. Sociology in the Pastoral Course for the Clergy; Examiner in Sociology at the University of Malta; Lecturer in History and Appreciation of Art at the Malta School of Art; Lecturer in Sacred Art at the Major Seminary; at I.N.S.E.R.M.; Lecturer in Art Appreciation at St Edward`s College; taught English Literature and Art History at St Teresa monastery, Cospicua. He also lectured regularly, mainly on Art, at the British Council Centre, the Italian Istituto di Cultura, the Alliance Francaise and other cultural centres. For many years he was sub-editor of “Scientia” and Archivist of the Maltese Dominican Province. 

While studying in Florence, he was encouraged by Prof G LaPira, ex mayor of the City, to set up an Art Centre at S Marco, but had to return to Malta for family reasons. Fr Zerafa joined the Museums Department in 1970 as Assistant Curator of Fine Arts and was responsible for the setting up of the National Museum of Fine Arts, Valletta and the Museum of Contemporary Art at St Julian`s. He became Curator of Fine Arts in 1975 and Director of Museums in 1981. He was responsible for the opening of a number of museums in Malta and Gozo. During this period he was involved in the recovery of the painting “St Jerome” by Caravaggio. His tactful contact with the thieves, over a period of eight months resulted in the successful recovering of this masterpiece. Fr Zerafa has been invited to lecture at the Smithsonian, Washington; at Fordham University, New York; at the American University, Rome; at the Dominican Curia Generalizia, Rome; at Aspen Museum, Colorado; at the Moscow State University; at the Academy for Contemporary Art, Moscow; at the Academy for Design, Togliattigrad; at the Preti Museum, Taverna; at Budapest Museum, as well as other educational institutions. He has taken part in International conferences in Quebec, Tunis and other cities and has helped organize numerous art exhibitions in London, Paris, Moscow and Palermo. He was Chairman of Government committees and of other committees of various organizations. Until his resignation was Chairman of the Archdiocesan Commission for Sacred Art. 

He is a member of the Dominican Commission for Preaching through Art. Fr Zerafa retired from the Museums Department at the age of 61. He is now lecturer in Sacred Art at the Angelicum University, Rome. He is also “Aquinas Visiting Scholar” at Toronto University, Canada. He lectures at Cultural centres in Malta, and often leads groups of students on cultural tours abroad. He has restored works by Mattia Preti, Favray, and other Masters. His own paintings and sculptures are to be found in churches and collections in Malta and abroad. An exhibition of his works and projects was held at Gallery G in December 2007. Publications: “Developments in the doctrine of private property” (Rome, 1945) “The Genesis of Marx`s realist interpretation of History” (Rome, 1962) “Caravaggio Diaries” (Malta, 2004) Being translated into Italian and Russian. “Memories” (In preparation) Contributions to the Encyclopaedia of Contemporary Art, Florence: to Thieme Becker, Berlin: and other publications.

Milton Esterow is editor and publisher of ARTnews. Since he bought ARTnews from Newsweek Magazine in 1972, he has guided its growth into the most widely circulated art magazine in the world. Since 1975, ARTnews has won most of the major journalism awards presented to magazines. Its editors and reporters have been honored forty-four times for excellence in reporting, criticism, and design. Under Mr. Esterow's direction, ARTnews became the first magazine to consistently apply rigorous standards of investigative reporting to the art world. Mr. Esterow received a special award for lifetime achievement from the College Art Association, the national organization of educators, artists, art historians, curators, critics, and institutions in 2003. He was cited for “his exceptional contributions to art journalism and investigative art reporting” and for having “overseen the magazine’s financial success while enhancing its reputation and influence in the visual-arts community and beyond.”

David Gill is a former Rome Scholar at the British School at Rome, and Sir James Knott Fellow at Newcastle University. He was responsible for the Greek and Roman collections at the Fitzwilliam Museum and was subsequently Reader in Mediterranean Archaeology at Swansea University. His Sifting the Soil of Greece: the Early Years of the British School at Athens (1886-1919) [2011] was published to coincide with the 125th anniversary of the School. He received the Outstanding Public Service Award from the Archaeological Institute of America (2012). Gill has published widely on cultural matters and his “Material and intellectual consequences of esteem for Cycladic figures” (co-written with Dr Christopher Chippindale) presented a new methodological approach to studying this area. He has a regular editorial column, “Context Matters”, for the Journal of Art Crime, and runs a research blog, “Looting Matters”.

Simon Mackenzie is Professor of Criminology, Law & Society in the School of Social and Political Sciences at the University of Glasgow, where he is also a member of the criminological research staff at the Scottish Centre for Crime and Justice Research, a cross-institutional organization conducting national and international criminological research projects. Prof Mackenzie co-ordinates the Trafficking Culture research group, which is a pioneering interdisciplinary collaboration producing research evidence on the scale and nature of the international market in looted cultural objects, including regional case studies of trafficking networks and evaluative measures of the effects of regulatory interventions which aim to control this form of trafficking. Trafficking Culture is funded with a €1m research grant from the European Research Council. The group employs a core group of researchers plus an affiliate Leverhulme Early Career Research Fellow, and four PhD research students, making it a world-leading center for study in this field. As well as producing research evidence, the team are developing educational resources for the next generation of scholars via a new course, run for the first time in 2014, on International Trafficking in Cultural Objects, offered as part of the three Criminology Masters pathways which Prof Mackenzie convenes at Glasgow: the MRes Criminology; the MSc Criminology & Criminal Justice; and the MSc Transnational Crime, Justice & Security. Simon’s research on the international market in illicit cultural objects began with his PhD, leading to the publication in 2005 of Going, going, gone: regulating the market in illicit antiquities, which won the British Society of Criminology Book Prize that year. The book was mainly an empirical study of attitudes and practices of high-end dealers in relation to their engagement with looted artefacts, and an analysis of the implications for regulation and control of the various neutralizing and justificatory narratives surrounding handling illicit objects at the top end of the market. 

From 2005-07, in a study with Prof Penny Green funded by the UK’s Economic and Social Research Council, Simon extended this analysis by looking at the market’s reaction to the onset of explicit criminalization in a case study of the Dealing in Cultural Objects (Offences) Act 2003. This research was published in Mackenzie and Green (eds) Criminology and Archaeology: Studies in Looted Antiquities (2009), part of the Onati International Series on Law and Society and based around the proceedings of a workshop at the Onati International Institute for the Sociology of Law exploring the interdisciplinary possibilities of a field of study based both in archaeology and criminology. 

Simon has worked with a number of international organisations, providing research-based input to support initiatives to reduce the international trade in looted cultural objects: eg. he has worked with UNODC in producing briefing documents for UN member states in their 2009 enquiry into Trafficking Cultural Property, leading to policy recommendations made at the UN Commissions and Congress on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice; and he is currently on the editorial committee of ICOM’s International Observatory on Illicit Traffic in Cultural Goods. Prof Mackenzie is a member of the Peer Review Committee of the Arts and Humanities Research Council, Associate Editor of the Howard Journal of Criminal Justice, and a member of the editorial board of the British Journal of Criminology. His criminological research has been supported by grants and contracts from funders including the EU, ESRC, AHRC, both the UK and Scottish Governments, and the UN.

Sandy Nairne is currently Director of the National Portrait Gallery in London, a post he has held since 2002. As director of one of Britain’s popular national museums (visited by more than 2m each year) he has sought to combine a determined drive for research and scholarship in the understanding of collections and in making exhibitions, with a strong emphasis on education and community engagement. He has supported the wider implementation of advanced security procedures (combined with new technologies) to protect collections and loans, and the sharing of information about thefts and cases of forgery, even when this appears difficult for individual museums. 

In July 1994, as Director of Programmes for the Tate, Sandy Nairne flew to Frankfurt on the day following the shocking theft of two paintings by J.M.W.Turner, then worth £24m, and on loan to the Schirn Kunsthalle from the Tate. Nairne then spent eight and a half years coordinating the complex attempts to recover these two great masterpieces. The first was recovered in July 2000, but returned to Britain incognito in order not to disturb the connections made to those holding the second painting (with approval from the Frankfurt Prosecutors’ Office). Following an approved ‘payment for information’ the second painting was returned in December 2002. In 2011 Nairne published a detailed account of the recovery, combined with a close analysis of the issues surrounding high value art theft, from ethics, to value and to motivation. Art Theft and the Case of the Stolen Turners (Reaktion) has gone into a second printing, and been published in translation in Germany and in Japan.

Lyndel Prott AO (1991), Öst. EKWuK(i) (2000), Hon FAHA; LL.D. (honoris causa) B.A. LL.B. (University of Sydney), Licence Spéciale en Droit international (ULB Brussels), Dr. Juris (Tübingen) and member of Gray’s Inn, London, is former Director of UNESCO’s Division of Cultural Heritage and former Professor of Cultural Heritage Law at the University of Sydney. She has had a distinguished career in teaching, research and practice, including co-operation with ICOM and INTERPOL to improve co-ordination between civil and criminal law to deal with illicit traffic. At UNESCO 1990-2002 she was responsible for the administration of UNESCO’s Conventions and standard-setting Recommendations on the protection of cultural heritage and also for the negotiations on the 1999 Protocol to the Hague Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict 1954 and the Convention on the Protection of the Underwater Cultural Heritage 2001. She contributed as Observer for UNESCO to the negotiations for the UNIDROIT Convention on Stolen or Illegally Exported Cultural Objects 1995. She has authored, co-authored or edited over 280 books, reports or articles, written in English, French or German and translated into 9 other languages. Currently Honorary Professor at the University of Queensland, she has taught at many universities including long distance learning courses on International Heritage Law.

Monica Dugot is responsible for coordinating Christie's restitution issues globally. She and her team of researchers vet nearly every lot Christie’s offers at auction, which means somewhere in the region of 200 sales a year, from Old Masters and Books to Impressionist and Modern Art focusing on provenance between 1933 and 1945; to identify possibly spoliated but unrestituted objects; and to help in resolving restitution claims for works consigned for sale. 

Prior to joining Christie's, Ms. Dugot served for almost eight years as Deputy Director of the New York State Banking Department's Holocaust Claims Processing Office, where she coordinated the Art Claims branch of the HCPO's work and assisted owners and heirs in seeking to recover art collections that were lost or looted during the Nazi era. She has represented New York State on art restitution matters at many venues including the 1998 Washington Forum on Holocaust-Era Assets and the International Conference on Holocaust Era Looted Cultural Assets in Vilnius, Lithuania. Ms. Dugot is on the Advisory Board of Claremont McKenna College’s Center for Human Rights Leadership, and the Society of American Friends of the Jewish Community Vienna. She is currently a member of the Art law Commission of the Union Internationale des Avocats (UIA). She also served as a member of the NYC Bar Association's Art Law Committee.

Martin Finkelnberg is the Head of the Art and Antiques Crime Unit of the National Criminal Intelligence Division which is part of the recently reorganized National Police Force of the Netherlands. He joined the police force in 1976 as a junior intelligence officer and for roughly 30 years was mainly involved in firearms investigations and counter terrorism. 

In 2006 he was asked to build a national database on stolen works of art. At the same time he also had to restart the Art and Antiques Crime Unit that had been discontinued in 2002. Today this unit is composed of four individuals. Over the course of the years Finkelnberg also felt necessity to establish contact points within each police region. In 2013 this led to the appointment of not only ten dedicated police officers -- one in every region -- but also to a dedicated national public prosecutor. These are however not experts and they are being trained on a regular basis by Finkelnberg and others on legislation, awareness of the importance of preserving cultural heritage, and on criminal trends and activities. The unit, in principal, is not an investigating body itself but an intelligence hub for the regional police forces who are responsible for carrying out criminal investigations. 

However, because of the complexity of Dutch legislation regarding illegal trade in cultural property, Martin Finkelnberg occasionally goes out on the road himself. During several of these occasions and in close cooperation with the Cultural Heritage Inspection, he recovered more than 70 items from Iraq, some of them dating back to 5,000 B.C.. He and his unit also proved to be instrumental in solving many major museum break-ins such as the Hofje van Mevrouw van Aerden Museum in 2011 in which case the police recovered a 15 Million euro painting by Frans Hals; and the Museum Gouda where in 2012 the burglars used an explosive device to blow up the front door of the museum (In this case the unit was also able to establish links between these suspects and another museum break-in in 2009 and to them identifying several other museums as possible targets).