Just a week after it was introduced by Steve Chabot (R-OH), the Foreign Cultural Exchange Jurisdictional Immunity Clarification Act (HR 4292) was marked for hearing today. Three members spoke in favor, a voice vote was taken, and bill was referred favorably to the full House.
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Topics: Restitution, World War II, Foreign Sovereign Immunities, Immunity from Seizure Act, Foreign Cultural Exchange Jurisdictional Immunity
Steve Chabot (R-OH) has reintroduced the Foreign Cultural Exchange Jurisdictional Immunity Clarification Act (H.R. 4292), after a previous attempt to amend the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act with regard to the loan of cultural objects failed to become law in 2012. The text of the March 25, 2014 bill is identical to the version that passed in the House in 2012. Its co-sponsors are John Conyers (D-MI) and Bob Goodlatte (R-VA), and it has been referred to the House Judiciary Committee.
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Topics: Cornelius Gurlitt, Malewicz v. City of Amsterdam, Girolamo Romano, Gurlitt Collection, 22 U.S.C. § 2459, Christ Carrying the Cross Dragged by a Rogue, 517 F.Supp.2d 322, FSIA, Restitution, David Toren, 19 U.S.C. § 1595a, Steve Chabot, Orrin Hatch, House Judiciary Committee, 28 U.S.C. § 1605(a)(2), 28 U.S.C. § 1605(a)(3), Senate Bill 2212, World War II, IFSA, Foreign Sovereign Immunities, Altmann v. Republic of Austria, Portrait of Wally, John Conyers, Immunity from Seizure Act, Dianne Feinstein Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act, Federal Republic of Germany, 28 U.S.C. § 1605, H.R. 4292, Foreign Cultural Exchange Jurisdictional Immunity
In response to the recent request by the Agudas Chasidei Chabad plaintiffs for an interim judgment on the compounding sanctions judgment for the Russian Federation’s refusal to comply with a 2010 judgment to return the ancestral library of the movement’s leader (Rebbe), the United States has filed a statement of position and asked the U.S. District Court to ignore Russia’s willful defiance of that judgment. The statement of position cites some credible post-judgment remedy law, but it is mostly a re-hashing of the previously statement filed by the U.S. which the court declined to adopt when it sanctioned the Russian defendants last year. The U.S. position also continues to argue that letting diplomatic avenues run their course is the prudent move, even though there is not the slightest indication that Russia is paying U.S. diplomats any mind whatsoever. More worriedly, the U.S. asks that the plaintiffs be required to advise the government before taking any further action. It is hard to avoid the irony that the United States is asking for an order that its citizens be required to advise the government of their intent to vindicate their rights against Russia.
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Topics: Yossarian, Immanuel Kant, Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act, Rebbe, Agudas Chasidei Chabad, Catch 22, Categorical Imperative, Russian Federation, FSIA, Restitution, IFSA, Foreign Sovereign Immunities, Joseph Heller, Immunity from Seizure Act
The Holocaust Art Restitution Project reports today that a new version of Senate Bill 2212, the Foreign Cultural Exchange Jurisdictional Immunity Clarification Act that would have amended the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act to preclude claims against defendants whose “commercial activity” is limited to the loan of artwork whose ownership is in dispute, but which are immunized from seizure pursuant to the Immunity from Seizure Act (22 U.S.C. § 2459). The Art Law Report covered the bill extensively last year. Although the bill as previously passed would have exempted Holocaust claims from the exception, the bill in broad terms was designed to prevent another Malevich v. City of Amsterdam situation, in which the very loan of a painting immunized from seizure was itself held to satisfy the commercial activity jurisdictional requirements of the FSIA.
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Topics: Holocaust Art Restitution Project, Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act, 22 U.S.C. § 2459, Association of Art Museum Directors, Foreign Sovereign Immunities, Immunity from Seizure Act, Foreign Cultural Exchange Jurisdictional Immunity
The First Circuit Court of Appeals has affirmed a win for the Museum of Fine Arts Boston and Harvard University concerning possession of a number of Iranian antiquities. The ruling left open, however, some interesting questions about the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act (FSIA). In particular, the First Circuit did not have to rule on whether antiquities in a museum are “property” of a source country that could be used to satisfy an unrelated judgment, or whether a museum displaying an object from a foreign country makes the object “used in commercial activity” such that it is no longer immune from seizure under the FSIA.
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Topics: cultural property, Terrorism Risk Insurance Act of 2002, 28 U.S.C. § 1610, 22 U.S.C. § 2259, Rubin v. Islamic Republic of Iran, 116 Stat. 2322, Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act, § 201 (a), Harvard University, Restitution, Foreign Sovereign Immunities, Antiquities, Immunity from Seizure Act, Museums, Museum of Fine Arts Boston, Pub. L. No. 107-297
In a story that gets more unusual with every new development, the Russian Foreign Ministry has reportedly recommended filing a lawsuit, in Russia, against the United States Library of Congress in response to last month’s contempt sanctions order by the U.S. District Court of the District of Columbia arising out of Russia’s refusal to obey a judgment to return the Chabad Lubavitch library of Menachem Schneerson.
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Topics: Russian Times, Russian Foreign Ministry, sanctions, The Art Newspaper, Library of Congress, 22 U.S.C. § 2459, Foreign Sovereign Immunities, Litigation, Immunity from Seizure Act, Chabad, Sergey Lavrov
In a case that has tested the principles of how a defiant sovereign defendant can be compelled to comply with a court order, the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia has taken an emphatic step in an order issued today. The Russian Federation, the Russian Ministry of Culture and Mass Communications, the Russian State Library, and the Russian State Military Archive will be fined collectively $50,000 per day until they comply with a 2010 judgment to return the library of Menachem Schneerson, the late charismatic leader of the worldwide Chabad Lubavitch movement, to the movement in Brooklyn, New York. Whereas the court lacked any power to compel the seizure of the library itself overseas, the plaintiffs will now be armed with a very real financial bludgeon against the defendants that have thumbed their noses at the U.S. courts for more than three years. In any case where the defendant refuses to obey a court order that court has a wide array of tools to compel compliance, but this case has been an awkward example of the limits on a court of law faced with an uncooperative party overseas. Particularly where the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act, 28 U.S.C. § 1603 (the FSIA) was the basis for jurisdiction, as it is in so many wartime art restitution cases, and the fact that the 2010 judgment led to a still-ongoing embargo of art and cultural artifact loans to the United States, the decision is a significant one for the realm of art law.
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Topics: cultural property, Lativa, Menachem Schneerson, Germany, Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act, Rebbe, 28 U.S.C. § 1603, Bolshevik, the Russian Ministry of Culture and Mass Communica, Russian Federation, the Russian State Library, FSIA, Restitution, the Russian State Military Archive, World War II, Foreign Sovereign Immunities, Agudas Chasei Chabad, Poland, Russian Revolution, Soviet Union, Immunity from Seizure Act
Senate Bill 2212, previously passed by the House of Representatives, seemed to be gathering steam as 2012 came to a close. In November and December bipartisan sponsors were signing on, with no publicly-known opposition as it waited for a Senate Committee on the Judiciary hearing.
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Topics: House Resolution 4086, 113th Congress, Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act, 112th Congress, Restitution, Senate Bill 2212, Foreign Sovereign Immunities, Immunity from Seizure Act, Foreign Cultural Exchange Jurisdictional Immunity
Opposition to Senate Bill 2212, the Foreign Cultural Exchange Jurisdictional Immunity Clarification Act (a bill the Art Law Report favors in its frequent commentaries) has been renewed recently. Senate Bill 2212 (already passed by the House of Representatives) would remove the mere display of a work of art in the United States as a satisfactory basis to satisfy the commercial activity requirement of the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act necessary to sue a foreign sovereign here in the United States.
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Topics: Germany, Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act, Plundered Art, 22 U.S.C. § 2459, Restitution, Senate Bill 2212, World War II, Foreign Sovereign Immunities, Nikki Georgopulos, Altmann v. Republic of Austria, Immunity from Seizure Act, Nazi theft, Foreign Cultural Exchange Jurisdictional Immunity, Malevich v. City of Amsterdam, Art Law Report
We launched the Art Law Report one year ago tomorrow. Several dozen posts, thousands of visitors and many more views later, a very special thank you to everyone who has read and followed the blog. The connections made literally all around the world are humbling and enlightening. We continue to strive to provide an interesting selection of legal updates and issues, while offering an opinion and perspective that tries to improve the understanding both of those familiar with legal concepts, and those less so. The continuing developments in copyright, FSIA, immunity from seizure, and other resitution issues in particular are certainly keeping us on our toes, and collections issues like the Barnes case are never too far away either. Your links and comments are appriated, and we will keep linking to all those viewpoints from which we are learning too. Here's to another year of substantive conversation.
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Topics: cultural property, Immunity from Seizure, Collections, FSIA, Restitution, Foreign Sovereign Immunities, Copyright, Immunity from Seizure Act, Foreign Cultural Exchange Jurisdictional Immunity, Art Law Report, Barnes Foundation
