Restituting Nazi-confiscated Art: A Restatement

NYU School of Law’s Center for Transnational Litigation, Arbitration, and Commercial Law is glad to be able to announce that on September 16, 2024, it will host a seminar titled “Restituting Nazi-Confiscated Art: A Restatement”.

The in-person only event, to take place from 6.30-8.00 pm in the Lester Pollack Colloquium Room, located at 245 Sullivan Street, NY, will feature Professor Matthias Weller as the main speaker and Professor Francesca Ragno, Professor Clayton P. Gillette, and Mr. Alfred Fass as commentators, while the Center’s Executive Director, Professor Franco Ferrari, the seminar’s convener, will act as moderator.

As you may know, in 1998, 44 States endorsed the “Washington Conference Principles on Nazi-Confiscated Art”, 11 soft-law principles to encourage “just and fair solutions” for artworks and cultural property that had been taken from Jewish people in the Holocaust. These principles have set in motion a far-reaching process of restitution of artworks outside court proceedings producing thousands of decisions in the six most active countries: Germany, Austria, the Netherlands, France, the United Kingdom, and Switzerland – good reasons to distill from this practice a “Restatement of Restitution Rules for Nazi-Confiscated Art” in order to identify recurring issues, tipping points, and a “grammar of reasons” that will help to address recurring points of controversy. And it is this “Restatement”, elaborated by Professor Matthias Weller and his team of PhD researchers over the last five years, that Professor Weller will present on the occasion of the event hosted by the Center. In his presentation, Professor Weller will focus on the concept behind and the results of this research project, possible implications for international practice, as well as the context of his work in Germany, where the Government is currently undertaking a major reform of the restitution process, with implications also for arbitration.

Although participation in the event is free of charge, given the limited space, registration is required.

You can register using this link: https://forms.gle/EGGQa68YHdjfyYhp8