Prof. Toshiyuki Kono wins 2019 Reimar Lüst Award

Toshiyuki Kono, distinguished professor of the Faculty of Law at Kyushu University, has been awarded a 2019 Reimar Lüst Award for International Scholarly and Cultural Exchange, which recognizes scholars in the areas of humanities and social science whose outstanding contributions have strengthened the relationship between their home countries and Germany.

Granted by the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation to at most two people each year, the award is accompanied with a monetary prize funded by the Fritz Thyssen Foundation for conducting further research.

Kono’s research has focused on private international law, international civil litigation, and heritage law. In addition to the international enforcement of intellectual property rights and the analysis of the economic impact of the laws chosen when legal actions cross international borders, he has a deep interest in legal aspects of the control of illicit traffic of cultural properties.

Kono has been very active internationally as the eighth president of the International Council on Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS), which is headquartered in Paris and promotes the protection and conservation of places of particular cultural importance around the world. Before being elected president in 2017, Kono was a vice president (2014–2017) and member of the executive committee (2011–2014).

As a part ICOMOS, Kono helped to draft the “ICOMOS Guidance on Post Trauma Recovery and Reconstruction for World Heritage Cultural Properties,” and he has also been evaluating cultural properties nominated for inclusion on UNESCO’s World Heritage List.

Kono was in Berlin on June 27, 2019, to receive his Reimar Lüst Award, presented to him by Hans-Christian Pape, President of the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation.

“I am very honored to be selected as an awardeee of the prestigeous Reimar Lüst Award in 2019. I take this as encouragement to start new research projects and educational activities. I look forward to further collaborations with German colleagues and friends,” said Kono of the honor.