News

Dr Emiline Smith was interviewed on NewsFirst Sri Lanka. Dr Smith talked about looting, illegal export, and protection of Sri Lanka’s cultural heritage. The full interview is available on YouTube here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_9AMrBXxpd4 

Article “The Ongoing Looting of Sri Lanka’s Cultural Heritage” written by Dr Emiline Smith has been published on Hyperallergic. “Artifacts stolen from the Kotawehera Rajamaha temple in Sri Lanka are the latest victims of longstanding looting and trafficking,” writes Smith.  Read the full article...

Dr Donna Yates wrote a piece titled “Violence as a Value Enhancer in the Art Market” for the Social Science Research Council’s “Where Heritage Meets Violence” series. In this piece, Dr Yates look at the market for Pacific cultural heritage: The sale of heritage from the Pacific is entangled with colonial narratives that sensationalize cultures of the...

Neil Brodie and Donna Yates gave a keynote presentation titled “Money Laundering and Antiquities” at UNESCO/EU Workshop on the Role of the Financial Sector in the Fight against Illicit Trafficking of Cultural Property, which took place online on 27 January 2022. The workshop brought together leading experts and professionals in the field. Lecturers, researchers, representatives of the...

Dr Donna Yates made an appearance on “What Are Museums For” podcast by Fitzwilliam Museum, Colnaghi Foundation and Athena Art Foundation. Dr Yates appeared on episode 4 titled “Restitution”. Fitzwilliam Museum Director Luke Syson and Athena Art Foundation Director Nicola Jennings talk with Professor Nicholas Thomas and Dr Donna Yates about institutional and community...

Neil Brodie and Donna Yates will give a keynote presentation titled “Money Laundering and Antiquities” at UNESCO/EU Workshop on the Role of the Financial Sector in the Fight against Illicit Trafficking of Cultural Property, which will take place online on 27 January 2022. The workshop will bring together leading experts and professionals in the field. Lecturers, researchers,...

Dr Donna Yates will give a lecture titled “The antiquities trade: Defining a grey market?” at online summer school Cross Border Transfer of Cultural Objects: the Law, Challenges, and Practice.  The summer school will take place online from 23 – 26 August 2021. The programme is curated by Evelien Campfens (Leiden University) and Naomi Oosterman (Erasmus University Rotterdam). “The Centre...

Dr Donna Yates will participate in roundtable Session #376. “Expanding Horizons: Decolonisation, Contested Ownership of Archaeological Material, and the 1970 UNESCO Convention on Cultural Property” at the 2021 annual meeting of the European Association of Archaeologists. The session will be held entirely online and will take place at 14:30 – 17:30 CEST, 8 September 2021. The content of the...

The European Research Council-funded “Trafficking Transformations” project is hosting an online conference “The Power of Things: Understanding relationships between objects and crime. The conference will take place on 6 May 2021. This conference takes an “object-focused” approach to understanding aspects of crime and crime prevention. The goal of this conference is...

Dr Donna Yates will be one of the key speakers at an introductory webinar “Criminal networks trafficking antiquities: can we disrupt the market ?” organised by EU AML/CFT Global Facility. This webinar is the first of a series of regional events where international experts and law enforcement agencies will discuss approaches to disrupting criminal networks involved in trafficking...

Stumbling Towards Repatriation: We need to make it clear to our museums that we do not want to walk around in galleries of stolen artworks by Erin L. Thompson and Emiline Smith has been published on Hyperallergic. Read the full article here: https://hyperallergic.com/628195/stumbling-towards-repatriation/

Dr Donna Yates will be speaking at virtual Study Forum (6 Feb) organised by Institute of Art & Law. This forum will provide an opportunity to hear about some of the fascinating issues and recent developments in the art and cultural heritage law field. Topics discussed will include: Art contracts, Copyright, Looting and art theft, Brexit/ EU-UK Trade Agreement, Cultural property. The price...

Dr Donna Yates and Dr Pierre Losson are presenting at a conference “Global Provenance” organised by the University of Bern, the Musée d’ethnographie de Genève, the Musée d’ethnographie de Neuchâtel and the Palais de Rumine. The conference will take place over multiple days, Dr Yates and Dr Losson will speaking on 2 February. Their talk is titled...

Dr Donna Yates and Brieanah Gouveia of King Kamehameha V Judiciary History Center will be speaking at a 2-day international online conference (28 and 29 January) organised by Leiden University. Donna Yates and Brieanah Gouveia will be giving talk titled ‘Provenance narratives of colonial exploitation as value enhancers on the Oceanic art market’. This interdisciplinary conference...

Dr Donna Yates is one of the people teaching at a certificate course “Art Law and Its Security Dimensions” (28th to 30th January) organised by Directorate of Extension and Distance Learning, Rashtriya Raksha University. Rashtriya Raksha University is a pioneering national security and police university of India. This 3-day course will introduce students to advance problems in Art...

Congratulations to Dr Emiline Smith who has been awarded a Scottish Funding Council GCRF grant for the project ‘Art, Feathers & Crime: New Approaches to Studying Natural and Cultural Heritage Trafficking in Indonesia’. Together with Dr Chloe Heys (Staffordshire University), Dr Tular Sudarmadi (Gadjah Mada University), Dr Adam Miller (Planet Indonesia) and Dr Panggah Ardiyansyah...

Dr Donna Yates will be speaking at a 2-day international online conference (24 and 25 Nov) organised by National Heritage Board of Latvia. Dr Yates will be giving talk titled ‘Regulating the “Grey” Antiquities Market: what works, what doesn’t and a way forward’. The event will mark the fiftieth anniversary of the 1970 UNESCO Convention on the Prohibition and Prevention of the...

Dr Donna Yates will be speaking at a three-day online conference (16 to 18 Nov) hosted by the Federal Foreign Office in cooperation with UNESCO, the European Union and the Council of Europe. Dr Yates will be part of an expert online panel speaking on Mechanisms in fighting the trafficking in cultural property on day 2 of the conference. The full programme of the event is available...

Simon Mackenzie’s book Transnational Criminology: Trafficking and Global Criminal Markets has been published by Bristol University Press! The book is available here (including 20% discount) https://bristoluniversitypress.co.uk/transnational-criminology This pioneering study looks across key trafficking crimes to develop a social theory of transnational criminal markets. These include human...

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