Schriftenreihe der Forschungsstelle Provenienzforschung, Kunst- und Kulturgutschutzrecht – serie

This volume reveals the potential effects of interdisciplinary cooperation between the areas of provenance research and art and cultural property law. The art historical articles deal with subjects such as cultural assets from colonial contexts, art looted by the Nazis, and the confiscation of cultural assets in the Soviet occupation zone and in the GDR, as well as questions of methodology. The legal articles address the fundamental questions of legal protection of art and cultural assets, for example the implications in terms of civil law of the new Art and Cultural Property Law.

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.

The Washington Principles of 1998 call for "just and fair solutions" in dealing with "Nazi-looted art". The United Kingdom implemented this call in 2000 by establishing the Spoliation Advisory Panel (SAP), which has since provided a dispute-resolution mechanism to respond to claims made by entitled parties. This publication looks at the 22 recommendations that the panel has issued to date. The decisions are analyzed against the background of English legal tradition and practice as well as the historical role of the United Kingdom, systematized and presented in an abstract set of rules. Visualized in this way, the SAP's decision-making principles can be taken as the basis for further discussion and comparison with other countries’ restitution practices.

Die vorliegende Publikation ist das Ergebnis eines an der Rheinischen Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Bonn unternommenen Forschungsprojektes, das auf eine umfassende rechtsvergleichende Bestandsaufnahme und Analyse der internationalen Restitutionspraxis sowie der ihr zugrundeliegenden Gerechtigkeitserwägungen zielte. Dazu wurde Fallmaterial aus Deutschland, Österreich, den Niederlanden, Frankreich, dem Vereinigten Königreich und der Schweiz gesichtet und systematisiert. Hieraus wurden Regeln für gerechte und faire Lösungen abstrahiert und ausformuliert, die den gegenwärtigen Stand der Praxis widerspiegeln und damit als Argumentationshilfe für entscheidende Stellen dienen können. Kommentierungen erklären die formulierten Regeln. Länderberichte erläutern die Praxis in den jeweiligen Jurisdiktionen. Englische Ausgabe

Almost three decades since the 1998 Washington Conference on Holocaust-Era Assets, a new awareness of provenance research and practices of restitution has taken hold. This volume brings together voices from academia, museums and the art trade for a critical consideration of these developments, including essays that analyze restitution cases from a legal perspective in the UK, France and Germany, explore provenance as a form of knowledge and through its materiality, and question how international museums and the art market have dealt with provenance and restitution practices in Munich, Vienna, and London. The volume contributes to current debates about the theory and methods of provenance research, today seen as an expanded and multidisciplinary field at the intersection of law, history, anthropology and the art world.A critical look at provenance research and restitutionMultidisciplinary approaches and methodology