Art as a Weapon

Journal article

29 pages

0736-7694

This Note analyzes how property rights can shift during wartime, in addition to examining the question of whether or not they should. Part I examines the historical background underlying government-organized art theft and the looting and destruction of cultural property, including contributing ideological factors, how restitution efforts have developed over time, and the legal landscape governing the outcomes of proceedings involving stolen art and antiquities. Part II analyzes the ramifications of these legal developments, particularly how the law has affected victims’ property rights and answered to the lingering effects of the Holocaust. Further, Part II compares the laws addressing Holocaust-era art claims to treaties governing the ongoing crisis of ISIS-looted cultural property. Part III proposes five reform factors for the newly-implemented HEAR Act to take into consideration in order to allow victims the broadest opportunity to seek restitution: (1) the shifting of the due diligence analysis onto the current possessor of afflicted art, (2) the complete removal of the Act’s federal statute of limitations, (3) alternatively, the substitution of a more favorable demand and refusal rule, (4) providing attorneys’ fees for claimants, and (5) the removal of the Act’s sunset provision.

Published in : Cardozo Arts & Entertainment Law, vol. 38, no. 1 (2020)

[New York City, New York] : Yeshiva University Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law, 2020.

English