AIR’s mission is to connect the worlds of law and art by supporting artists locally and around the world. By informing artists about their legal rights and safeguarding legal protections for artistic speech, students can help to empower the artistic community, who is often found at the helm of social change. AIR consists of two projects: a partnership with the Center for Art Law (CAL) and a partnership with the Artistic Freedom Initiative (AFI). Students will participate in one of the two projects.
Center for Art Law: The project with CAL supports the Center for Art Law’s mission of offering educational resources for the advancement of a vibrant arts and law community. Through our partnership, we will contribute to legal scholarship on issues such as artists’ rights, intellectual property, restitution, and cultural heritage. The project responds to the unmet need for accessible legal resources and programming in the arts community for the benefit of artists, students, academics, and legal professionals.
In collaboration with the Center for Art Law, students will review case law and contribute to the Center’s collection of lawsuits in their Case Law Corner involving artworks, cultural property, artists’ estates, galleries, and other areas of interest. Familiarity with art history, visual art, and/or the humanities is helpful but is by no means necessary as the project itself will involve training and collaboration. Through this project, students will learn about the world of art law and develop their legal research and analysis skills.
Artistic Freedom Initiative: AIR is also partnered with the AFI. Along with the legal team at AFI, students have the opportunity to participate in one of two projects. In both projects, students will prepare a comprehensive study of the suppression of artistic freedom in various countries. Students will research the various universal, regional, and national instruments that protect creative expression, as well as efforts by the governments of the selected countries to restrict artistic freedom. Researchers will help to identify the effects of these efforts, as well as recommended public policies, legal measures, and best practices countries should take to further protect freedom of artistic expression. This legal and policy research will culminate in a report to be published and distributed at an AFI event at a future date to be announced. Students are invited to attend the event and may have the opportunity to present their research.
The two AFI projects are tentatively as follows:
- (1) UPR Submissions: Under the supervision of an attorney, students will draft and publish a submission to the United Nations identifying ways in which a country’s (country TBD) government is restricting artistic freedom, and recommending public policies, legal measures, and best practices the country should take to further protect freedom of artistic expression. Please see the most recent submission here.
- (2) Artistic Freedom in the USA: Under the supervision of an attorney, students will conduct research and draft a report that tracks public policies, legal measures, and legislation that limit artistic freedom in the USA.
Supervision: Students in AIR provide legal services under the supervision of Center for Art Law and from Artistic Freedom Initiative.
Time commitment: Students working in the CAL team are expected to work 2-4 hours per week and students working in the AFI team are expected to work 2-3 hours per week.The AFI will have regular bi-weekly meetings based on our availability as well as other training or check-ins if needed
For more information, please contact the student leaders at airprobono@law.berkeley.edu.