Distinguished Lecture: Protecting Cultural Heritage in Times of Conflict

Learn about the legal protection of cultural heritage and the challenges of safeguarding cultural property during armed conflict.

Please note that this event is HYBRID.

In-person at Lester Pollack Colloquium Room, Furman Hall @ NYU School of Law (245 Sullivan Street, between Washington Square South and West Third Street) and Online on Zoom.

Join the Center for Art Law and the NYU Law Art Law Society for the 2026 Distinguished Lecture, with Professor Alicja Jagielska-Burduk, author of Cultural Heritage as a Legal Hybrid: Between Public and Private Law (Springer, 2022), who will explore why cultural heritage must be understood as a legal hybrid and what that means in practice. Drawing on her research and her work with UNESCO, she will examine the protection of tangible cultural heritage in light of the war in Ukraine, including the challenges of safeguarding cultural property in armed conflict, preventing its illicit movement across borders, and securing its eventual return.

About the Speaker

PhD, MBA, attorney at law, expert in legal issues related to culture and the art market. In 2014, the government of Poland nominated her as a mediator at the UNESCO Intergovernmental Committee for Promoting the Return of Cultural Property to Its Countries of Origin or Its Restitution in Case of Illicit Appropriation. In 2020, she was selected as an arbitrator for the Arbitrator Pool of the Court of Arbitration for Art (CafA) in Hague. She is the holder of the chair UNESCO on the Cultural Property Law of the University of Opole. She also co-chairs TIAMSA Legal within The International Art Market Studies Association. She is the co-founder and editor-in-chief of the Santander Art and Culture Law Review. She serves as a correspondent for Poland to the International Institute for the Unification of Private Law (UNIDROIT), having been appointed for two consecutive terms (2022–2025 and 2025–2028). She is a member of the Polish National Commission for UNESCO. She is also a member of the Presidium of the Polish National Bar of Attorneys-at-Law (Krajowa Izba Radców Prawnych), where she chairs the Foreign Affairs Committee.