Toshiyuki Kono was born in Osaka Prefecture in 1958. He is a graduate of the Kyoto University Faculty of Law. He attended the Kyoto University School of Law where he completed his master’s degree and then completed the coursework for the doctoral program before leaving. He worked in the Kyushu University Faculty of Law as an assistant professor before becoming a professor in the Kyushu University Graduate School for Law in 1997. His primary area of study is international law. This includes international civil procedure law and international cultural properties protection law. He was a member of the expert committee which drafted the UNESCO Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage, as well as a member of the expert committee which drafted the Convention on the Protection and Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural Expressions. In 2011, Kono became an executive committee member of ICOMOS and then vice president before, in 2017, becoming the first Japanese president of ICOMOS.