Hostname: page-component-7479d7b7d-q6k6v Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-07-11T07:47:06.475Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Chabad v. Russian Federation: A Case Study in the Use of American Courts to Recover Looted Cultural Property

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 September 2010

Michael J. Bazyler  and
Seth M. Gerber
Michael J. Bazyler
Affiliation:
Chapman University School of Law. Email: bazyler@chapman.edu
Seth M. Gerber
Affiliation:
Bingham McCutchen. Email: seth.gerber@bingham.com
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Displaced and nationalized cultural property remains hidden in the vast holdings of museums, libraries, and archives around the world. Some governments holding these “trophies” of war and conquest refuse to return such cultural treasures to their rightful owners even when their provenance has been identified. They assert that the collections were obtained through expropriation and nationalization, and that divestiture of a museum, library, or archive would jeopardize the existence of these institutions and cause societal discord.

This article discusses the struggle of an orthodox Jewish organization to recover from the Russian Federation a collection of sacred, irreplaceable books and manuscripts seized in the aftermath of the Bolshevik Revolution and during World War II. The story of Agudas Chasidei Chabad's efforts to recover these core religious texts of its spiritual leaders has involved appeals by U.S. presidents, congress, and the U.S. Helsinki Commission, as well as lawsuits in the Soviet Union/Russia and United States.

After prolonged litigation in the United States, a federal court of appeals in Washington DC ruled in 2008 that American courts have jurisdiction over Chabad's suit against the Russian Federation to recover its religious texts. This ruling may pave the way for the resolution of this dispute and also lead to the filing of other suits in American courts seeking to recover looted cultural property, even if that property is located outside U.S. borders.

Type
Articles
Information
International Journal of Cultural Property , Volume 17 , Issue 2: SPECIAL ISSUE: Spoils of War v. Cultural Heritage: The Russian Cultural Property Law in Historical Context , May 2010 , pp. 361 - 386
Copyright
Copyright © International Cultural Property Society 2010

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Akinsha, Konstantin (with Grimsted, Patricia K.). “Put' nazad: Biblioteka Shneersona i vozvrashchenie ‘Smolenskogo arkhiva’” / “On the Way Back: The Schneerson Collection and the Return of the ‘Smolensk Archive.’” In Vozvrashchenie “Smolenskogo arkhiva” The Return of the “Smolensk Archive”. Bilingual edition, edited by Choldin, Marianna Tax, Dmitrieva, Karina Aleksandrovna, Genieva, Ekateriana Iur'evna, and Grimsted, Patricia Kennedy. Moscow: ROSSPEN, 2005. Sponsored by the Commission for Art Recovery, in the series “Heritage Revealed.”Google Scholar
Altein, Rachel. Out of the Inferno. New York: Kehot Publication Society, 2002.Google Scholar
Bankas, Ernest K.The State Immunity Controversy in International Law: Private Suits against Sovereign States in Domestic Courts. New York: Springer, 2005.Google Scholar
Bazyler, Michael J. “Abolishing the Act of State Doctrine.” University of Pennsylvania Law Review 134 (1986): 325–80.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bazyler, Michael J.Holocaust Justice: The Battle for Restitution in America's Courts. New York: New York University Press, 2003.Google Scholar
Bernhardsson, Magnus Thorkell. Reclaiming a Plundered Past: Archaeology and Nation Building in Modern Iraq. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2005.Google Scholar
Boyd, Lee C. “The Inconvenience of Victims: Abolishing the Doctrine of Forum Non Conveniens in U.S. Human Rights Litigation.” Virginia Journal of International Law 39 (1998): 41–90.Google Scholar
Dellapenna, Joseph W.Suing Foreign Governments and Their Corporations. 2nd ed.New York: Transnational, 2003.Google Scholar
Dokumenty po istorii i kul'ture evreev v trofeinykh kollektsiiakh Rossiiskogo gosudarstvennogo voennogo arkhiva [Documents on the History and Culture of Jews in the Trophy Collections of the Russian State Military Archive.] Compiled and edited by Kuzelenkov, V. N., Kupovetskii, M. S., and Fishman, David E.. Moscow, 2005; Rosarkhiv; RGGU; RGVA; Jewish Theological Seminary of America; YIVO Institute for Jewish Research; a publication of the “Project Judaica.” An English edition is forthcoming: David E. Fishman, Mark Kupovetsky, Vladimir Kuzelenkov, eds. Nazi-Looted Jewish Archives in Moscow: A Guide to Jewish Historical and Cultural Collections in the Russian State Military Archive. Scranton, PA: University of Scranton Press, 2010.Google Scholar
Feldbrugge, F. J. M., ed. Russia, Europe, and the Rule of Law. Leiden: Brill, 2006.Google Scholar
Fox, Hazel. The Law of State Immunity. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2008.Google Scholar
Grimsted, Patricia K.Trophies of War and Empire: The Archival Heritage of Ukraine, World War II, and the International Politics of Restitution. Cambridge: Harvard Ukrainian Research Institute, 2001.Google Scholar
Grimsted, Patricia K. with Hoogewoud, F. J., and Ketelaar, Eric (eds.). Returned from Russia: Nazi Archival Plunder in Western Europe and Recent Restitution Issues. UK: Institute of Art and Law, 2007.Google Scholar
Rigg, Bryan Mark. Rescued from the Reich: How One of Hitler's Soldiers Saved the Lubavitcher Rebbe. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2004.Google Scholar
Schneersohn, Joseph Isaac. The Heroic Struggle: The Arrest and Liberation of Rabbi Yosef Y. Schneersohn of Lubavitch in Soviet Russia, translated Metzger, and adapted from the memoirs of the rebbe by Alter B. Z.. New York: Kehot Publication Society, 1999.Google Scholar
U.S. Department of State. Washington Conference on Holocaust Era Assets November 30–December 3, 1998: Proceedings, edited by Bindenagel, J. D., et al. (Department of State publication 10603). Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1999. Also available as CD-ROM. ⟨http://www.state.gov/www/regions/eur/wash_conf_material.html⟩.Google Scholar