Ms Marta Suárez-Mansilla

 

Ms Marta Suárez-Mansilla

Lawyer specialising in Cultural Law / Researcher

Artworld Law / UNED / Vicepresident of ADA-Association of Art Law

Madrid, Spain

 

Ms Marta Suárez-Mansilla is a lawyer specialising in art law and cultural heritage law, Vicepresident of ADA (the first association on Art Law ever founded in Spain) and Founder/Director of the legal consultancy, Artworld Law. She is also a researcher on the international cultural property law.

 

Contribution:

Ms Marta Suárez-Mansilla’s main field of research focuses on the ways of preventing the illicit trafficking of cultural goods and understanding how national and international regulation may be implemented to fight against this problem. This may be done through an in-depth study of the regulation into effect, but also by analysing the different cases that emerge in the art and antiquities market to get a broad comprehension of a problem, which usually has extensive connections with other realities. This field of work led her to conduct exhaustive research on some cases linked to Spain, in cooperation with some police units, and also to enlarge my academic and professional connections worldwide with people also devoted to this same subject.

One of the closest proposals is to organise a conference on illicit trafficking cases and restitution in Madrid, in cooperation with some other institutions. This is still an ongoing project, but it is planned to organise such an event in the first months of the following year.

On the other part, she is involved in several courses, conferences and seminars in which she will provide information on this matter, both from a legal and from a practical perspective. This is an educational path that still lacks dissemination in Spain. Many people are unaware of the international regulation panorama and what they can do or not do regarding cultural heritage protection. Also, within the art and antiquities market, there are still some lax practices that require a change over time, thanks to tutorials and seminars that facilitate the understanding and provide a whole vision of the interests at stake.