Copyright has long promoted cultural expression by protecting creators, while also safeguarding freedom of expression. In today’s world, algorithms and platforms increasingly control how cultural works are created, shared and seen. How do we keep space for free expression while ensuring creators’ economic and moral rights are respected?
The Hague & Partners/Jurjen Drenth
The ALAI (Association Littéraire et Artistique Internationale) is a global association of copyright experts, founded in 1878 by Victor Hugo. It brings together legal scholars, practitioners, judges, and policymakers to promote and study authors’ rights and copyright law. Each year, the ALAI international congress takes place in a different country, offering a unique opportunity to connect & reflect on the future of copyright. The Dutch Copyright Society Vereniging voor Auteursrecht is proud to host the 2026 ALAI Conference.
The congress will take place from Thursday 18 to Friday 19 June 2026 in The Hague, The Netherlands.
A full scientific and social program with details on the venues and practicalities will follow in due course.
The Hague, known as the international city of peace and justice, is home to institutions such as the International Court of Justice and the Permanent Court of Arbitration. The city has excellent public transport with frequent connections to international trains and is conveniently located near both Amsterdam Schiphol international Airport and Rotterdam-The Hague airport (50 European destinations), making it easily accessible for international visitors.
The congress will take place from Thursday 18 to Friday 19 June 2026 in The Hague, The Netherlands. As usual, Wednesday 17 June 2026 features the meeting of ALAI’s Executive Committee, and welcome drinks late afternoon for all conference participants. Thursday and Friday are dedicated to a wealth of sessions exploring the conference theme and a gala dinner.
The full event and social program will be shared soon.
The Hague & Partners/Jurjen Drenth, Arjan de Jager, Jurriaan Brobbe
ALAI is pleased to announce the very first Next Generation Event, a theme-related side event of the 2026 ALAI Congress, designed for early-career copyright scholars and practitioners (within five years after PhD defence or bar admission). It will be held at the main conference venue.
This half-day event will bring together 30 participants to explore two cutting-edge topics at the intersection of copyright and freedom of expression. The format combines keynote inputs, participant pitches, and moderated group discussions, offering young professionals a unique opportunity to engage actively in the Congress, network with peers, and contribute to published outcomes in the ALAI congress proceedings.
Participation in the Next Generation Event is exclusively reserved for attendees of the main ALAI congress and comes at no additional charge. All participants are expected to cover their own travel and accommodation expenses, but will qualify for the student fee of the main conference.
Call for Interest
ALAI invites all early career scholars and practitioners with a special interest in one of these topics to apply or register. Please note: participants interested in delivering a pitch will be chosen based on expertise in the topic, supported by a short motivation statement and relevant publications.
Details of the programme and application and registration procedure will be published in December 2025 on this website.
The ALAI 2026 Congress brings together a global audience of copyright experts for three days of discussion, learning, and networking.
As a sponsor, you’ll have visibility with a highly engaged group of professionals, including lawyers, judges, academics, representatives, and researchers from universities.
Rates, accommodation options, and the full program will be shared during the course of 2025. We will update this website as soon as new information is available.
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Alexandra Bensamoun is a Professor of Law at Université Paris-Saclay, specialising in intellectual property and digital regulation. She directs the M2/LLM PIFTN (a joint degree programme with Laval-Québec and Madrid) and has notably published a Treatise on AI Law (LGDJ, 3rd ed., 2026). She is Vice-President of the French group of ALAI and a member of the Executive Committee of the international association. An expert for UNESCO, a qualified member of the CSPLA (the French Ministry of Culture’s Higher Council for Literary and Artistic Property) and a member of the Interministerial Commission on AI (reporting to the President of the French Republic), she has led several missions for the Ministry of Culture on the implementation of the AI Act, the remuneration of cultural content used by AI systems (which gave rise to a bill currently under consideration in the Senate), and AI-generated content.

Agnès Lucas-Schloetter is Professor at Nantes Université, France, where she heads the Master’s Program in Intellectual Property and Digital Law. Her main field of interest includes European and comparative copyright law. She is co-author of a leading French commentary on copyright law, the “Traité de la propriété littéraire et artistique” (LexisNexis, 6th edition 2026).
Severine Dusollier is Professor at Sciences Po Paris, holds a Senior Chair at the Institut Universitaire de France, and is a Qualified Member of the CSPLA (French Copyright Council). Her research deals with authorship, contractual protection and remuneration of authors and performers, AI and copyright, copyright limitations and commons.

Kacper Szkalej is a MSCA Researcher in AI and IP Law at the Faculty of Law, University of Bergen. Prior to joining UiB, he was Assistant Professor in Law and IT at the Law and Informatics Research Institute, Stockholm University and the cross-disciplinary research centre Digital Futures, Assistant Professor of Private Law at Lund University, and postdoctoral researcher at the Institute for Information Law, University of Amsterdam. He holds a PhD in copyright law from Uppsala University. His research centres primarily on copyright law and covers a wide array of themes such as licensing, technological protection, remuneration schemes, public interest exploitation, machine learning and genAI, open access, enforcement and fundamental rights.
Professor at the Post-Graduation School of Public Policy and Development (PPED) at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ) and at the Law School of ITR/UFRRJ. He is a lawyer, holds a PhD in Law and his contemporary research includes different aspects of copyright, more specifically on the relations with freedom of artistic expression, right to research, access and cultural rights, artificial intelligence and innovation in general
Daniel J. Gervais, PhD, is the Milton R. Underwood Chair in Law at Vanderbilt University Law School, where he serves as Director of the Vanderbilt Intellectual Property Program. He is also appointed as part-time Senior Associate Professor at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. In 2022, he held the Distinguished Fulbright Chair at Carleton University in Ottawa. He is a Past President of the International Association for the Advancement ort Teaching and Research in Intellectual Property (ATRIP). Prior to joining Vanderbilt, he was the Acting Dean of the Faculty of Law (Common Law Section) of the University of Ottawa. He has been visiting professor at several major universities in Europe and Asia. He is the author of a leading treatise on the WTO TRIPS Agreement (Sweet & Maxwell, 5th edition 2023), and a “sci-fi legal trilogy” titled the Coexistence Trilogy. The first volume Forever, was published in 2023. He also published books published by Cambridge University Press and Oxford University Press, among others. His research has been published in many of the world’s leading law reviews, and other publications, including Science
Stef van Gompel is Professor of Intellectual Property at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. He is also Board member of the Dutch Copyright Supervisory Authority (CvTA), member of the Dutch Copyright Advisory Committee, chief editor of the Dutch copyright journal Auteursrecht and former president of the Dutch national group of AIPPI.
Bernt Hugenholtz is Emeritus Professor of Law at the University of Amsterdam and former Director of the Institute for Information Law (IViR). He is an expert in international and European copyright law, and an honorary member of the Vereniging voor Auteursrecht, the Dutch ALAI society.
Irini Stamatoudi is a Professor and the Director of the School of Law at the University of Nicosia, Athens UNIC (Greece). She is also an attorney-at-law. She has served as General Director of the Greek National Copyright Office. She has worked as a copyright expert on projects and taught academic courses in many countries.
Prof. dr Mireille van Eechoud is Dean of Amsterdam Law School and holds a chair in information law at the University of Amsterdam, Institute for Information Law. She chairs the Dutch group of ALAI and the Dutch government’s Advisory Committee on Copyright. Her specializations include international and EU copyright law, private international law, freedom of information and data access regulation.
Adela (Zhixuan) Wang is a Herchel Smith PhD candidate at Queen Mary University of London and her current research focuses on legal transplants and harmonisation of the parody exception in copyright law.

Caterina Sganga is Professor of Comparative Private Law and Director of the DIRPOLIS Institute, Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna (Pisa, Italy). She is Former President (2024-2025) of the EPIP Association; Member of the European Copyright Society; author of policy studies for the EU and the Italian legislators; coordinator/PI and work package leaders in several EU-funded Horizon projects in the field of copyright and the law of cultural and creative industries (CCIs). Her key research areas are EU copyright law, IP and new technologies, the balance between IP and human rights, the law and economics of CCIs, data ownership and governance, Open Science law and policies.

Peter Teunissen is Assistant Professor, Radboud University (Nijmegen) and specialises in intellectual property law. His work covers mainly copyright, trademark and design law, unfair competition, and their interaction with European Union law and fundamental rights. He wrote his PhD thesis on injunctions and proportionality in intellectual property law.
Katharina de la Durantaye is professor for private law and law of the digital transformation at Humboldt University in Berlin, Germany. Her research focuses, among other things, on copyright law, and on the regulation of the digital economy, including AI regulation.
Alexander Peukert (pronounce as Poikert) is professor of civil, commercial and information law at Goethe University Frankfurt am Main. Peukert was chair of the European Copyright Society (2023-2024) and of the working group tasked with drafting the copyright-related rules of the first EU General-Purpose AI Code of Practice (2024-2025).
Péter Mezei is a professor of law (University of Szeged, Hungary), an honorary adjunct professor (University of Turku, Finland), a chief researcher (Vytautas Magnus University, Lithuania) and a professor invité (Université Lyon III, France). His focus is on comparative law, and comparative, digital, International and European copyright law.
Tatsuhiro Ueno joined Waseda University in 2013, and he is currently Director of both the Research Centre for the Legal System of Intellectual Property (RCLIP) and the Institute of Comparative Law. He is a specialist in copyright law and has published numerous articles on the subject.

Axel METZGER is Professor of Civil and Intellectual Property Law, Humboldt-University, Berlin.
After studies in law in Hamburg, Paris, Munich and Harvard, he was professor at Leibniz Universität Hannover before entering the law faculty of Humboldt-University in 2014. Axel has served as Dean of the Humboldt-University Law Faculty from 2022-2024. His research focuses on intellectual property, information technology and general contract law.
Professor Frank Gotzen (°1947) received his law degree (Doctor in Law) from the KU Leuven in 1970. He obtained a grant from the Alexander von Humboldt-Stiftung and worked from 1970 till 1973 as a researcher at the Max-Planck-Institute for Foreign and International Patent, Copyright and Competition law in Munich. In 1979 he became a lecturer for “Copyright” at the Law Faculty of the KU Leuven and in 1984 also for “Industrial Property”. Since 1987, he was Professor for Copyright an Industrial Property. After his retirement in 2012 he continued to teach “Copyright” as an emeritus Professor.
Professor Gotzen has been Dean of the Law Faculty of the Catholic University of Brussels (KU Brussel) from 1982 till 1987. From 1992 till 1997 he was the Rector of this university. Professor Gotzen is the founder of the Centre for Intellectual Property Rights (CIR) and has been its director between 1988-2014. Today, it has been integrated into the Centre for IT & IP Law (CITIP).
In 1994 Professor Gotzen worked as an expert at the Belgian Parliament to review the Belgian Copyright Bill. He has been an expert several times for the Commission of the European Community, drafting studies in Intellectual Property matters. In 2002 and in 2006 he has been appointed as Visiting Researcher in the Institute for Intellectual Property (IIP) in Tokyo. In 2013 he was appointed as Program Professor in the School of Public Affairs of the University of Science and Technology of China (USTC) in Hefei. Since 2011 he is a visiting Professor for the Master en Propriedad Intelectual of the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid.
He acted as a member of the Scientific Council at the Max-Planck-Institute for Intellectual Property in Munich and of the EU Experts group on Copyright and Neighbouring Rights with the European Commission .
In 1998, he established a LL.M. program in intellectual property rights which has now become the Master of Intellectual Property & ICT Law in Brussels.
At present he is a member of the Belgian High Council for Intellectual Property.
Since 2016, he serves as President of the International Copyright Association ALAI, based in Paris.

Bernd Justin Jütte is Associate Professor in Intellectual Property Law at University College Dublin’s Sutherland School of Law. His research interest center around digital aspects of copyright law, in particular at the intersection of copyright exceptions and fundamental rights. and the regulation of online speech on platforms through copyright norms and other normative frameworks.

Gemma Minero is Associate Professor of Civil Law at Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, where she coordinates the LLM in IP and the LLM in Legal Advice in AI. Her thesis was awarded with the Spanish Congress of Deputies Award. She is member of the Spanish IP Commission.
Romana Matanovac Vuckovic, Full Professor at the University of Zagreb Faculty of Law; Head of the IP Postgraduate Specialist Study. Former Deputy Director General of SIPO; President of Croatia’s Copyright Experts Council; President of the EU Council Audiovisual Working Party during Croatia’s EU Presidency. Expertise: copyright, collective management, audiovisual law, IP policy.
Jane C. Ginsburg, U. Chicago (BA 1976, MA 1977), Harvard (JD 1980) Université de Paris II (DEA 1985, Dott. 1995) is the Morton L. Janklow Professor of Literary and Artistic Property Law at Columbia University School of Law. She writes about domestic and international copyright and trademarks law.
Bartolomeo Meletti is the Head of Knowledge Exchange of CREATe, the Centre for Regulation of the Creative Economy at the University of Glasgow. His expertise and research interest are in the areas of copyright law and the lawful use of existing content, with a focus on copyright exceptions.
Prof Paul Torremans is professor of Intellectual Property Law, School of law, University of Nottingham (UK).
His research focuses on IP and private international law, as well as the relationship between IP and Human Rights (P. Torremans (ed), Intellectual Property Law and Human Rights, Kluwer Law International (5th ed, 2026).
Dirk Visser (1969) is Professor of Intellectual Property Law at Leiden Law School since 2003 and advocaat in Amsterdam since 1996 (Visser Schaap & Kreijger).