Die niederländische Restitutionskommission

Over the past 20 years, the Restitution Commission in the Netherlands has had a decisive influence on international restitution practice relating to Nazi-confiscated cultural property. In 2021, its procedural regulations and substantive legal basis for decision-making were reorganized extensively following the recommendations of the so-called Kohnstamm Commission. This publication is the first to systematize all previously published recommendations and binding decisions of the Netherlands Restitution Commission in the light of this new framework, classifying them according to a schematic evaluation. The abstract decision-making processes and emergent criteria are then examined to determine whether they meet the requirements of a just and fair solution in the spirit of the Washington Principles.