Folarin Olawale Shyllon (23 July 1940 – 13 January 2021) was a lawyer recognised for his contributions to the history of black people in Britain and his work on cultural heritage law and protection of

cultural heritage Cultural heritage is the heritage of tangible and intangible heritage assets of a group or society that is inherited from past generations. Not all heritages of past generations are "heritage"; rather, heritage is a product of selection by socie ...

Early life and education

Shyllon studied law at

King's College London King's College London (informally King's or KCL) is a public university, public research university in London, England. King's was established by royal charter in 1829 under the patronage of George IV of the United Kingdom, King George IV ...

, receiving an LLB in 1966 and LLM in 1967.

Research and publications

Shyllon was the foundation dean at the Faculty of Law at the University of Ibadan from 1983. Notable works included ''Black Slaves in Britain'' (1974), which was praised by

Asa Briggs Asa Briggs, Baron Briggs (7 May 1921 – 15 March 2016) was an English historian. He was a leading specialist on the Victorian era, and the foremost historian of broadcasting in Britain. Briggs achieved international recognition during his lon ...

, and ''Black People in Britain, 1555-1833'' (1977). Shyllon was committed to the protection of cultural heritage. He headed the committee of the National Archives of Nigeria and was a key figure in developing the

UNESCO Convention on the Means of Prohibiting and Preventing the Illicit Import, Export and Transfer of Ownership of Cultural Property The UNESCO 1970 Convention on the Means of Prohibiting and Preventing the Illicit Import, Export and Transfer of Ownership of Cultural Property is an international treaty to combat the illegal trade in cultural items. It was signed on 14 November ...

(1970) and the

UNIDROIT Convention on Stolen or Illegally Exported Cultural Objects UNIDROIT Convention on Stolen or Illegally Exported Cultural Objects (Rome, 1995) is the international treaty on the subject of cultural property protection. It attempts to strengthen the main weaknesses of the 1970 UNESCO ''Convention on the Mean ...

(1995). He was the author of two chapters in the ''Oxford Handbook on International Cultural Heritage Law'' (2020). Shyllon was a member of the International Cultural Property Society on the board of the ''International Journal of Cultural Property''. He actively campaigned for the recovery of looted artefacts, including the

Benin Bronzes The Benin Bronzes are a group of several thousand metal plaques and sculptures that decorated the royal palace of the Kingdom of Benin, in what is now Edo State, Nigeria. The metal plaques were produced by the Guild of Benin Bronze Casters, now ...

Later life

Shyllon retired from Ibadan in 2005. He was made Fellow of the W.E.B. DuBois Institute at Harvard University. In 2007, he became Dean at the Olabisi Anabanjo University. He was later on a Member of the Board of the Federal Inland Revenue Service of Nigeria.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Shyllon, Folarin Nigerian legal scholars Nigerian historians 1940 births 2021 deaths Alumni of King's College London