New court opened at The Hague

In The Hague, the International centre of peace and justice, has opened on June 7 2018 a court which will exclusively deal with art disputes. The court will be called The Court Arbitration for Art (CAA) and even though it is located in The Hague the court is able to conduct hearings all over the world. The Hague is normally known for dealing with international disputes that mostly topics about war crimes and crimes against humanity. Opening this new court is an interesting development organized by Mr. William Charron, a New-york based lawyer, with the support from the Netherlands Arbitration Institute (NAI) and the nonprofit group Authentication in Art. 

All hearings in the CAA will by arbitrated by lawyers who are specialized in art. This is done so decisions made will be as fair as possible and as acceptable as possible to the art market. One of the extraordinary features is the involvement of expert witnesses. Luke Nikas, who helped with the developing the CAA with Charron and was also selected as one of the persons who are the one of the ‘most powerful art lawyers in 2006’ says: “The idea is to give the most comfort possible to the market that authenticity decisions are based entirely neutral expert analysis.”

The cases that will be held in The Court of Arbitration for Art will for example involve the authenticity of the art subjects, contracts that or not properly followed, any copyright claims, and other sources of contention. 

If you want to attend one of the proceedings in the CAA you unfortunately cannot. All proceedings are held in private. However, after the end of every case will the arbitrators release a statement which will explain the decision made.