Despite some predictions (!) of a swift ruling on the Chabad plaintiffs' motion for contempt for the Russian state library defendants' refusal to comply with an order two years ago to return the library of Menachem Schneerson, the U.S. District Court in Washington, DC today solicited the views of the United States on the possibility of holding the Russian defendants in contempt for their non-compliance with the orders of the Court and their general disregard of the legal proceedings. Russian state museums have refused for more than a year to lend cultural objects into the U.S. because of the ruling, despite multiple and unassailable levels of assurances that loans of objects other than the Schneerson library are safe from any seizure related to the Chabad case.
As a scholar friend and I were just discussing this week, using contempt sanctions as a means to force compliance in FSIA cases is controversial. It will be interesting to see what the U.S. government says on the topic. In an unexpectedly timely way, however, the continued lack of resolution underscores our recent comments about the FSIA: while its interpretation has broadened in restitution cases, it remains very an open question how practically useful it is to actually retrieving a cultural object.
