Family honour and rights, the lives of persons, and private property, as well as religious convictions and practice, must be respected. Private property cannot be confiscated. (Art. 46)
Pillage is formally forbidden. (Art. 47)
1907 Hague Convention (IV) Respecting the Laws and Customs of War on Land
K. To make restitution of art and cultural property that remains in state-owned collections and private hands possible, countries should consider making exceptions to barriers such as regulations against deaccessioning from state collections, statutes of limitations, market overt, usucapion (mode of acquiring title to property by uninterrupted possession of it for a definite period), good faith acquisition, and export bans.
Best Practices for the Washington Conference Principles on Nazi Confiscated Art
In early 1997, the Meili affair exposed pervasive cover-up schemes by Swiss banks to conceal the laundering of Nazi-looted assets by destroying documents of confiscated and looted Holocaust-era assets. This scandal was emblematic of the lack of political will and commitment to the 20 January 1943 London Inter-Allied Declaration Against Acts of Dispossession Committed in Territories Under Enemy Occupation or Control, which called on neutral countries not to trade in property (art included) looted by the Nazis. Seemingly, the Meili affair was the tripwire for Washington Conference On Holocaust-Era Assets that endorsed the Washington Conference Principles on Nazi Confiscated Art. Credit, however, must go to a three-day symposium in 1995. Commemorating the 50th anniversary of the end of WWII, the Bard Graduate Center for Studies in the Decorative Arts hosted a symposium organized by Elizabeth Simpson to discuss the Nazi plunder of art work, cultural property, and historic sites. Simpson, an archaeologist and professor at Bard, would exquisitely write on the substance of the symposium in The Spoils of War: World War II and Its Aftermath: The Loss, Reappearance and Recovery of Cultural Property – a highly recommended read. Continue reading “Restorative Justice of Nazi Looting, Intangible Cultural Heritage Rights, and Plundering of Cultural Heritage Sites: My conversation with Nicoletta M in Avant-Gardes Dialogues “