Communicating the results of my research is a cornerstone of how I understand my role as an academic. I enjoy sharing my findings, thoughts, opinions, and arguments with others: be it colleagues from the same or adjacent disciplines, researchers that work in different fields, university students, or the general public. Throughout my academic career, I've actively sought opportunities to present my work, and this page brings together some highlights with a full record of the talks and presentations I've been delivering over the years.

Feel free to have a look—and if you’re ever searching for a guest lecturer, speaker, or panelist, please do reach out to me!

Paul Stewens sitting behind a table during a panel discussion.

highlights

TEDx Talk "Your Favourite Dinosaur Might Be Stolen"

During my master’s at the Geneva Graduate Institute, I got to be part of the 2023 TED^xGVAGrad conference, titled “Rethink Realities”. Upon a successful application to be a speaker for the student corner, I not only got the chance to speak to an auditorium full of people to dinosaur theft, but also public speaking and speechwriting training beforehand to make sure I could do so as effectively as possible.

The result, my talk “Your Favourite Dinosaur Might Be Stolen”, has been viewed over 23,000 times (as of January 2025), making it the second most popular one from the conference and the third most popular in the history of TED^xGVAGrad. It’s a fun watch of well under six minutes’ duration and the most accessible introduction into what I’m doing academically and why I think it matters. So, I’d be delighted if you gave it a watch!

lecture "A Tale of Two Museums"

In June 2025, I was fortunate enough to be part of the seminar “Muséums et enjeux contemporains. Quels discours sur les collections d’histoire naturelle ?”. For six months, this series of lectures brought different researchers to the Muséum National d’Histoire Naturelle in Paris to speak about issues such as provenance research, colonial legacies, and restitution in the context of natural history museums. In about an hour, I explain why restitution is not as common of a topic in the natural history world, and why this should change. I discuss the relevant legal framework, its potential and shortcomings, and lots of examples of natural history objects or collections of problematic provenance.

The organisers were kind enough to record the lecture and the Q&A, so it’s here for you to watch. I hope you will find it insightful—and if your question wasn’t asked during the Q&A, please send me an e-mail and I’ll be happy to discuss it with you!

full list

This list contains every academic event at which I have spoken in my capacity as a researcher.

Title	Date	Place	Occasion
Law in geoscience research	12 June 2025	Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg	master course "Ethics and Law in Geoscience Research" taught by Dr Emma M. Dunne
A Tale of Two Museums: Introducing the Issue of Restitution to Natural History Museums	3 June 2025	Museum National d'Histoire Naturelle (Paris)	seminar "Muséums et enjeux contemporains"
Distinction Without a Difference? Natural vs. Cultural Heritage in the Spotlight of Restitution Claims	13 March 2025	online	online colloquium "Heritage & Justice. Unpacking Legal Narratives in Natural History"
Law in geoscience research	13 February 2024	online	master course "Ethics and Law in Geoscience Research" taught by Dr Emma M. Dunne
Law in geoscience research	22 June 2023	Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg	master course "Ethics and Law in Geoscience Research" taught by Dr Emma M. Dunne and Dr Danijela Dimitrijevic

Title	Event	Date	Place	Comment
Distinction Without a Difference, Difference Without a Distinction? Legal Confrontations with ‘the Other’ in Planet of the Apes (1968), Colonial Spain, and the Rights of Nature Debate	Law and Popular Culture Roundtable VII	18 June 2025	Maastricht (The Netherlands)	with Paula Lozada Alfaro
A Classification Unearthed: The History of Palaeontological Objects as Cultural Property in International Law	Third International Symposium on Heritage in War and Peace: Tangible and Intangible Cultural Heritage through Past, Present and Future	19 January 2024	Forlì (Italy)	winner of the first prize for the best contribution to the Symposium
Law Will Find A Way: Legal Research at the Intersection with Palaeontology	63. Junge Tagung Öffentliches Recht: Interaktionen: Internationalität, Intra- und Interdisziplinarität	20 July 2023	Hamburg (Germany)	with Dr Emma M. Dunne and Dr Nussaïbah Raja
Natural Language Processing in Genocide Research – Resources, Opportunities, and Limitations of an Emerging Field	16th Biennial Meeting of the International Association of Genocide Scholars: Authoritarianism & Genocide, Narratives of Exclusion	10-14 July 2023	Barcelona (Spain)	with Dr Miriam Schirmer; in-person participation cancelled due to lack of funding
Beyond the Classroom: On the Value of International Law Blogs for Students	Opening Access, Closing the Knowledge Gap? International Legal Scholarship Going Online	9 September 2022	Max Planck Institute for Comparative Public Law and International Law, Heidelberg (Germany)

Title	Date	Place	Setting
A Classification Unearthed: The History of Palaeontological Objects as Cultural Property in International Law	7 May 2025	Maastricht University	Graduate School of Law lunch lecture series
A Classification Unearthed: The History of Palaeontological Objects as Cultural Property in International Law	30 November 2023	online	Popularizing Palaeontology network
Becoming a Palaeontolawgist: My Journey Into an Odd Corner of the Law	15 June 2022	Maastricht University	Meeting of the Department of Criminal Law and Criminology

Title	Function	Date	Place
The Sublime, Law and Justice (Hugo and the Law)	Moderator	8 May 2025	Maastricht University
Human Rights Violations in Myanmar: Accountability and Beyond	Panelist	4 May 2023	Geneva Graduate Institute