[Daviscalendar-list] Feb. 8-9 / Conference: Spoils of War v. Cultural Heritage

[Davis Center Calendar of Events]

*Friday, February 8 - Saturday, February 9*
*Spoils of War v. Cultural Heritage: The Russian Cultural Property Law 
in Historical Context*

*Sponsors:
*Harvard Law School Arts & Literature Law Society
Commission for Art Recovery
Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies at Harvard University
Foundation for International Cultural Diplomacy
Harvard Law School European Law Research Center

/Free and open to the public with online// /*/registration 
<http://www.law.harvard.edu/faculty/martin/art_law/russian_registration.php> 
/*/(space permitting)/


Location: Langdell South Classroom, Harvard Law School, Cambridge, MA

For more information, please visit 
http://www.law.harvard.edu/faculty/martin/art_law/russian_law.htm

or contact lawlibr at law.harvard.edu <mailto:lawlibr at law.harvard.edu> or 
617-495-3170.

After WWII, Soviet authorities, seeking reparations for the extensive 
costs of Nazi aggression, used special "Trophy Brigades" to empty 
museums, castles, and salt mines in Germany and Eastern Europe, 
transporting millions of cultural treasures to the USSR. These included 
German state-owned cultural objects, cultural objects taken from 
churches and synagogues, as well as a great deal of private property 
that had been looted by the Germans from individuals. The art works 
taken back to the Soviet Union were held in relative secrecy for years, 
until the final years of glastnost. As European countries started to 
demand their cultural treasures and archives, Russian legislators passed 
a law that potentially nationalizes all cultural treasures brought to 
Russia at the end of World War II. In 1999 the Constitutional Court 
issued an opinion basically upholding the law if amended before 
implementation. How do these actions comport with international law? 
What are the chances for restitution of these displaced cultural valuables?

 

*Program*

*Friday, February 8, 2008*

1:00 p.m. - Welcome

    * The Evolution of Cultural Property Protection in International Law
    * Restitution of Cultural Property at the End of WWII
    * Stalin's Decrees and Soviet Trophy Brigades
    * Legality of Soviet Displacement of Cultural Valuables under
      International Law

5:30 p.m. - Reception

*Saturday, February 9, 2008*

8:30 a.m. - Continental breakfast

    * The Post-1991 Political Search to Legalize 'Compensation': the
      Long Battle over the Russian Law on Displaced Cultural Valuables
    * The Legality and Constitutionality of the Russian /Federal Law on
      Cultural Valuables Displaced to the USSR as the Result of the
      Second World War and Located on the Territory of the Russian
      Federation/
    * The Constitutionality of the Russian Federal Law on Cultural
      Valuables
    * Status of the Russian Law under International Law

Lunch

    * Russian-German Negotiations over Displaced Cultural Valuables
    * The Legal Situation with regard to German "Trophy Art" in Russia
      -- a German Perspective'
    * Non-Restitution under the Law: the Baldin-Bremen Case
    * Archives: the Forgotten Restitution Achievements under the Law
    * Trophy Art, Art Loans and Immunity From Seizure in both the US and UK

5:00 p.m. - Conclusions

*/- Appropriate breaks with refreshments will be provided - /*



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