Lawyers' Committee for Cultural Heritage Preservation 8th Annual Conference, co-sponsored with The Georgetown Art Law Association. 

Friday, March 10, 2017

8:00am-6:00pm

Georgetown University Law Center

The Gewirz Student Center, 12th Floor Lounge

The Gewirz Student Center faces McDonough Hall (the main Law Center building) 

120 F St NW Washington, DC 20001

Conference Program

8:00 a.m. –9:00 a.m.        Registration and Breakfast

9:00 a.m. –9:15 a.m.        Welcome Remarks

9:15 a.m. – 9:35 a.m.       Time to Reboot the Antiquities Dealing

Gary Vikan, former director of the Walters Art Museum

Topic: Gary Vikan, author of Sacred and Stolen, Confession of a Museum Director will talk about the creation of a new antiquities-collecting ecosystem as well as policy changes as they relate to museum storeroom collections, and access to foreign markets.

9:45 a.m. – 11:00 a.m.     Panel 1: US Committee of the Blue Shield and US Policy Perspectives on Cultural Heritage in Times of Armed Conflict

Topic: Human rights and law of armed conflict; the Second Protocol to the 1954 Hague Convention; possibilities for USCBS as a consulting organization to the new coordinating committee for cultural heritage protection (this was set up through the Engel legislation). 

Nancy C. Wilkie, President, U.S. Committee of the Blue Shield; Member, Interim Board, Blue Shield (International)

Knox Thames, Special Advisor for Religious Minorities in the Near East and South/Central Asia; Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor; U.S. Department of State

Moderator: Elizabeth Varner, Staff Curator, U.S. Department of the Interior, Interior Museum Program; Adjunct Professor, Indiana University Robert H. McKinney School of Law; Board Member, Lawyers' Committee for Cultural Heritage Preservation

11:00 a.m. – 11:15 a.m.   Break

11:15 a.m. – 11:35 a.m.   "All That Glitters Is Not Gold": Preserving Heritage Is Not Only about Saving a Work of Art

Patty Gerstenblith, Distinguished Research Professor, DePaul University College of Law, founding President of LCCHP

Topic: Legal and ethical pitfalls in the acquisition of archaeological materials by both museums and private collectors persist. This talk will focus on the values that we should promote in the acquisition and display of archaeological objects: the fostering of knowledge and the connection of cultural heritage to the people and communities who live among the cultural heritage.

11:45 a.m. –  1:00 p.m.     Panel 2: Update on the most important current Indigenous peoples issues in Canada and the US

Topic: This session will review the latest developments in heritage issues affecting Indigenous peoples in the U.S. and Canada.  Panelists will begin with a discussion of the regulatory framework and policy implications of the Dakota Access Pipeline controversy, including how structural regulatory challenges could lead to similar disputes in the future. They will then provide updates on the international repatriation of indigenous cultural material, including US legislative strategies to prevent theft and trafficking, and recent initiatives in Canada to repatriate tribal objects from domestic and foreign museums, which could serve as a model for future collaborative initiatives in the US and beyond.

Cheryl Andrews-Maltais, Chairwoman of the Wampanoag Tribe of Gay Head (Aquinnah)

Maya Hermann, Legislative Assistant for Senator Martin Heinrich (D-NM)

Co-Moderator: Stacey Jessiman,  Lecturer at Stanford University, teaching "Indigenous Cultural Heritage: Protection, Practice, Repatriation", President, Cultural Heritage Dispute Resolution (CHDR) Consulting

Co-moderator: Marion Werkheiser, Cultural Heritage Partners, PLLC

1:00 p.m. – 2:15 p.m.       Lunch 

2:15 p.m. – 2:35 p.m.       How Museums Can Help Change the Antiquities Market 

Victoria Reed, Monica S. Sadler Curator for Provenance, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

Topic: As active participants in the antiquities trade, museums can help sustain a market for licit, well-documented objects. To help diminish the demand for unprovenanced (and recently looted) antiquities, museums can and should require more information from sellers, conduct provenance research themselves, and walk away from poorly-documented objects. Responsible research practices will allow buyers--and sellers--to distinguish the undocumentable from the well-documented antiquity.

2:45 p.m. – 4:00 p.m.       Panel 3: Virtual Multimodal Museum (ViMM)

Topic: Discuss Virtual Multimodal Museum (ViMM), a high-visibility and participative Coordination and Support Action (CSA), funded under the EU Horizon 2020 programme (CULT-COOP-8-2016)

Marinos Ioannides, Ph.D., Cyprus Technical University and Project Manager, Initial Training Network - Digital Cultural Heritage

Moderator: Thomas R. Kline, Partner at Cultural Heritage Partners, PLLC ; Professorial Lecturer, George Washington University Museum Studies Program; Interim President for the Lawyers' Committee for Cultural Heritage Preservation

Professor Roko Žarnić, University of Ljubljana and co-coordinator of ECTP Focus Area Cultural Heritage (FACH) 

4:00 p.m. – 4:15 p.m.       Break

4:15 p.m. – 4:50 p.m.       Closing Remarks: Cultural Protection as a Refugee’s Personal Journey

Tasoula Hadjitofi, cultural activist and entrepreneur

Topic: Decades of experience seeking justice for the looting of Cyprus’s cultural heritage through repatriation of its stolen religious artifacts. Author of The Icon Hunter: A Refugee's Quest to Reclaim Her Nation's Stolen Heritage.

4:50 p.m. – 5:00 p.m.       Closing remarks by Thomas R. Kline, LCCHP President and Georgetown Art Law Association

5:00 p.m. – 6:00 p.m.       Reception

*Attendees seeking CLE credit for LCCHP conference on Friday, March 10, 2017 can pay a $75.00 fee and sign up here. The program is eligible for 2.5 General CLE credits (60 min states) and 3.0 General CLE credits (50 min states).