The Institute of Art and Law will be running the Diploma in Law and Collections Management once again in Australia in 2017. This time, the week-long course will be held, with gracious support from the Australasian Registrars Committee, at the Museum of Applied Arts and Sciences (the venue specifically known as the Powerhouse Museum) in central Sydney from Monday 27 March to Friday 31 March.

The course will be led by IAL Assistant Director Alexander Herman and IAL Senior Researcher Emily Gould. There will also be a number of guest lecturers, including a combination of Australian and international legal experts. The guest lecturers will be Tony Baumgartner (solicitor, partner at Clyde & Co LLP in London), Ian McDonald (special counsel in copyright at Simpsons law firm in Sydney), Charlotte Woodhead (Te Papa Museum, Wellington, New Zealand), Julie Banks (MAAS, Sydney), Prof Duncan Chappell (University of Sydney), Elizabeth Pearson (Student at Law, Baker & McKenzie), Ian Upjohn (barrister, Melbourne) and Prof Sheelagh McCracken (University of Sydney).

Examination will be by oral presentation at the end of the course and by dissertation to be submitted several weeks following the conclusion of the course. IAL will provide all documentation, and award a Diploma of the Institute, the Diploma in Law and Collections Management. However, for this particular intake in Sydney, there will also be a limited number of non-assessed places available for the course: these places will not consist of any examination and will not entail the reception of a Diploma.

The specialised Australian programme is as follows, subject to slight amendments:

Day 1 – Acquisitions, Legal Disputes and the Principles of Art and Cultural Property Law

Cultural property legal claims, best practices for avoiding disputes, dispute resolution mechanisms, case studies of the leading art law cases, record keeping and due diligence, the ethics and practice of acquisition, the law and ethics interplay

Day 2 – Title, Loans and Bailments

Acquiring legal title in museum objects, passing title and the relevance of a good faith purchase, the law relating to the sale of goods, loans and the law of bailment, the problem of old loans, the recurring gift/loan question, limitation periods, acquisition and loan agreements, foreign loans-in and anti-seizure protection (the Protection of Cultural Objects on Loan Act)

Day 3 – Restitution and Repatriation

Foreign title claims and past ownership, the 1954 Hague Convention and the protection of cultural property during armed conflict, the 1970 UNESCO Convention and its effect on the illicit trade in looted antiquities, the Protection of Movable Cultural Heritage Act, antiquities claims, indigenous claims, Holocaust claims, restitution committees

Day 4 – Intellectual Property

Copyright in artistic works, copyright duration, exceptions to copyright infringement (fair dealing and other exceptions), the moral rights of artists, IP and collections management, international IP considerations, museum copyright in photographs of paintings

Day 5 – Law, Policy and Museum Management

Security interests in art and the lesson for museums, misattribution liability for works of art, implied terms, case studies and exercises

The 2017 course is all booked up, so if you are interested, contact the Australasian Registrars Committee to get on the waiting list or to enquire about the next intake.