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Reflections on Holocaust Claims in International Law

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  19 March 2012

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It does not need to be said that to be asked to give the Lionel Cohen lecture is a great honor. One of the first books on private international law which I acquired when I became interested in the subject was a volume of the Lionel Cohen lectures delivered by Sir Otto Kahn-Freund. I have chosen a topic which involves the subjects in which I have my primary academic interests, public and private international law, but also a subject in which I had some professional involvement before I became a judge.

My immediate family was safely in England at the time of the Holocaust, but I am particularly glad that some of my cousins are here at this lecture. Their families in Poland were tragically involved in the Holocaust and my cousin Rony Lerner made a film in 2006, which was shown on Israeli TV, about the murder in Poland of his grandmother and his search for her murderers. His grandmother was my grandmother's sister.

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Lionel Cohen Lecture
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Copyright © Cambridge University Press and The Faculty of Law, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem 2008

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References

1 The Growth of Internationalism in Private International Law (1960).

2 My mother was born in Parczew, Eastern Poland, in about 1904, and came to England, with her parents and siblings, as a small child. Before the Second World War about half the population of Parczew was Jewish, and most of them were killed in Treblinka. After the war, a few of the survivors returned, but some were killed in a pogrom on February 8, 1946: See Gross, Jan, Fear: Anti-Semitism in Poland after Auschwitz 37 (2006, in paperback edition, 2007)Google Scholar.

3 Lerner's Revenge (2007).

4 U.S. House of Representatives, Committee on Banking and Financial Services, Meeting, Thurs., Feb. 12, 1998, at Washington, D.C., The Restitution of Art Objects Seized by the Nazis from Holocaust Victims and Insurance Claims of Certain Holocaust Victims and their Heirs, available at commdocs.house.gov/committees/bank/hba46854.000/hba46854_0f.htm.

5 The Guardian, Nov. 10, 2006.

6 Orkin v. Taylor, 487 F.3d 734, 738 (9th Cir.), cert. denied, 128 S.Ct. 491, 169 L.Ed.2d 340 (2007).

7 Id.

8 Germany signed agreements with 16 countries for the compensation of their nationals, including the Luxembourg Agreement with Israel, Sept. 10, 1952, 162 U.N.T.S. 205; American Ins. Ass'n v. Garamendi, 539 U.S. 396, 404, rehearing den. 539 U.S. 982 (2003).

9 See Segev, Tom, The Seventh Million: The Israelis and the Holocaust 189252 (2000)Google Scholar. Some of the issues raised in relation to Swiss banks have also surfaced in Israel. In January 2000 Bank Leumi, Israel's largest bank and the Anglo-Palestine Bank's successor, admitted to holding approximately 13,000 dormant accounts, many of which were believed to have belonged to victims of Nazi persecution. See Barkat, Amiram, NIS 240 Million in Bank Leumi Shares Belong to Holocaust Victims, Ha'aretz, June 24,2007Google Scholar, available at http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/874127.html. See generally Bazyler, Michael, Holocaust Justice: The Battle for Restitution in America's Courts 52 (2006).Google Scholar

10 There is a considerable literature on the background material, and I have drawn especially on Bazyler, supra note 9; Eizenstat, Stuart, Imperfect Justice: Looted Assets, Slave Labor, and the Unfinished Business of World War II(revised paperback edition, 2004)Google Scholar, and Holocaust, Restitution: Perspectives on the Litigation and Its Legacy 71 (Bazyler, Michael & Alford, Roger P. eds., 2007)Google Scholar [hereinafter Perspectives on the Litigation and Its Legacy]. For more journalistic accounts see, among many others, Authers, John & Wolfe, Richard, The Victim's Fortune Inside The Epic Battle over the Debts of the Holocaust (2003)Google Scholar. For an extreme view that the claims represent exploitation of the holocaust see Finkelstein, Norman, The Holocaust Industry (2nd ed. 2003)Google Scholar.

11 Bazyler, supra note 9, at 13-14.

12 In assessing the plunder of gold from Jews during the Holocaust, Stuart Eizenstat, Undersecretary of Commerce, and the Clinton administration's chief negotiator on Holocaust reparations asserted that:

Our major finding basically was that this was the greatest theft by a government in world history; that the Germans looted from the central banks of the countries they overran some $580 million in gold, which would be worth $5 ½ billion today; that they transferred the large part of that to Switzerland so that they could convert it into Swiss francs to purchase what they needed to sustain their war effort; that the role of the neutral countries and wellestablished principles of neutrality collided in the case of World War II with morality; and that many of the actions taken were really actions that—by all the neutral countries—this is not just Switzerland, but Sweden, Portugal, Spain—really contributed to prolonging the war effort.

Online Newshour, Accounting for Gold, May 7, 1997, available at http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/europe/may97/nazi_5-7.html [hereinafter Accounting for Gold].

13 Bazyler, supra note 9, at 14.

14 Id.

15 See generally In re Holocaust Victim Assets Litigation, 105 F. Supp.2d 139 (E.D.N.Y. 2000) (Korman, J.); In re Holocaust Victim Assets Litigation, 311 F. Supp.2d 407 (E.D.N.Y. 2004) (Korman, J.); In re Holocaust Victim Assets Litigation. 424 F.3d 158 (2nd Cir. 2005).

16 “In December 2000, after a comprehensive investigation by the Independent Committee of Eminent Persons (“ICEP”) of Swiss bank records, approximately 36,000 accounts were identified by the ICEP auditors as being either probably or possibly owned by Victims of Nazi Persecution.” Claims Resolution Tribunal, Holocaust Victim Assets Litigation (Swiss Bank) 2005 List of Swiss Bank Accounts from the ICEP Investigation (undated), available at http://www.crt-ii.org/2005_list.phtm.

17 See Claims Resolution Tribunal, Holocaust Victim Assets Litigation (Swiss Bank), Frequently Asked Questions, available at http://www.crt-ii.org/faqs.phtm.

18 The Bergier Commission in Bern is also known as the ICE or Independent Commission of Experts. It was established on 12 December 1996 by the Swiss federal assembly with a mandate to investigate from a historical and legal point of view the volume and fate of assets moved to Switzerland by victims of the Nazi regime and its representatives or collaborators. The investigation was also mandated to examine the relations between Switzerland and the Third Reich as well as Switzerland's Holocaust-era refugee policy. It has unlimited access to all relevant documents, and the banking confidentiality laws were waived for the purposes of its research. It informs the Swiss Federal Council every six months of the status of the investigation.

Geneva Financial Center, The Bergier Report (undated), available at http://www.geneve-finance.ch/en/place_fin/archives/fonds_desherence/rapport_berger.

19 Stuart Eizenstat: We have no evidence that the Swiss government or any other government willingly and knowingly accepted victims' gold; however, it is absolutely clear from our report that the Swiss National Bank did know that they were accepting looted gold; that is, gold that had been stolen from central banks. And what the Germans did, the Reich Bank combined gold that they stole from the central banks and victims' gold.

Accounting for Gold, supra note 12.

20 Bazyler, supra note 9, at 15 (“According to Sapir, as she held her father's finger through the wire [fence at a French detention camp], he told her, ‘You have to survive. You'll be OK, because there's money in the bank.’”); see also Honan, William H., [Obituary] Estelle Sapir: 73, Who Fought Bank Over Holocaust Assets, NEW YORK TIMES, Apr. 16, 1999Google Scholar available at http://query.nytimes.com/gstfillpage.htm5757COA96F958260.

21 See Honan, supra note 20.

22 Id.

23 Id. (“At that point, the bank entered into serious negotiations with Miss Sapir, and she agreed to accept a payment in exchange for withdrawing from the class-action suit against the three major Swiss commercial banks: Credit Suisse, Union Bank of Switzerland and the Swiss Bank Corporation.”)

24 Bazyler, supra note 9, at 17.

25 Id. at 18.

26 See e.g., Burger-Fischer v. Degussa AG, 65 F.Supp.2d 248, 251 (D.N.J., 1999).

27 Bazyler, supra note 9, at 75.

28 Id. at 18.

29 Id. at 17-18.

30 Id. at 21-22.

31 Perspectives on the Litigation and Its Legacy, supra note 10, at 71. See generally, Claims Resolution Tribunal of Holocaust Victim Assets Litigation against Swiss Banks and other Swiss Entities, Certified Awards Rendered by the Tribunal to the Bloch-Bauer, Leopold [Vienna, Austria]Google Scholar & Bloch-Bauer, Antoinette [Vienna, Austria], available at http://www.crt-ii.org/index_en.phtm. See also, O'Connell, Mary Ellen, Beyond Wealth: Stories of Art, War and Greed, 59 Ala. L. Rev. 1075 n.220 (2008).Google Scholar

32 Bazyler, supra note 9, at 347, notes to Ch. 2, especially notes 31, 33-34.

33 Meyer, Martin-Lorenz, Safehaven: The Allied Pursuit of Nazi Assets Abroad 9899 (2007).Google Scholar

34 Agreement on German External Debts, February 27, 1953, Great Britan Foreign Office, 160 British and Foreign State Papers 250 (1953). For the history see, e.g. American Ins. Ass'n v. Garamendi, supra note 8, at 401-06; Gross v. German Found. Ind. Initiative, 456 F. 3d 363, 371-375 (3d Cir. 2006).

35 Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany, Inc., Payments from Germany, West German Federal Indemnification Law (BEG) (2008)Google Scholar, available at http://www.claimscon.org/index.asp?url=germany/BEG.

36 Glaessner, Gert-Joachim, German Democracy: From Post-World War II to the Present Day 60 (2005)Google Scholar.

37 Id.

38 See, e.g., Iwanowa v. Ford Motor Co., 67 F. Supp. 2d 424 (D.N.J. 1999).

39 See generally the extensive documentation, available at http://www.state.gov/www/regions/eur/holocausthp.html.

40 See 1 Murphy, Sean D., United States Practice in International Law 1999-2001 at 137138 (2002)Google Scholar; Paust, Jordan J., Human Rights Responsibilities of Private Corporations, 35 Vand. J. Transnat'l L, 801 (2002).Google Scholar

41 See generally Gross v. German Found Ind. Initiative, supra note 34.

42 See generally German Foundation Chronology of Key Events (“Fall 1999—Schroeder-Clinton Exchanges: Chancellor Schroeder and President Clinton exchange correspondence on the amount of money necessary to capitalize the foundation and on the mechanism for achieving legal closure.”), available at http//germany.usembassy.gov/germany/img/assets/8497/chonology.pdf.

43 See United States-Germany: Agreement Concerning the Foundation “Remembrance, Responsibility and the Future” Text of Agreement, reprinted in 39 I.L.M. 1298 (Nov. 2000).

44 See generally The Current State of Compensation and Restitution Concerning the German Foundation “Remembrance, Responsibility, and the Future,” Statement as part of the Polish-German-Jewish Dialogue, Sponsored by the Bertelsmann Foundation, Given at Warsaw Poland, by Amb. J. D. Bindenagel, Special Envoy for Holocaust Issues, U.S. Department of State (Mar. 6,2002), available at http://germany.usembassy.gov/germany/img/assets/8497/bindenage1030602.pdf.

45 American Ins. Ass'n v. Garamendi, supra note 8, at 406.

46 Id. at n.2. (“The executive agreement was accompanied by a joint statement signed by the American and German Governments, the Governments of Israel and five Eastern European countries, and the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany, Inc., “[r]ecognizing that it would be in the participants' interests for the Foundation to be the exclusive remedy and forum” for all Holocaust-era claims against German companies. Excerpt of Record in No. 01-17023 (CA9) (ER), pp. 812-816.”).

47 For the complex history see generally Gross v. German Found. Ind. Initiative, supra note 34.

48 United States-Germany: Agreement Concerning the Foundation Remembrance, Responsibility and the Future, supra note 43.

49 See generally, Bazyler, Michael J., The Holocaust Restitution Movement in Comparative Perspective, 20 Berkley J. Int'l L. 11 (2002)Google Scholar; Swift, Robert A., The Financial Side to the Holocaust Litigation, 20 Cardozo L. Rev. 521 (1998).Google Scholar

50 International Commission of Holocaust Era Insurance Claims (2007), available at http://www.icheic.org.

51 Id.

52 Cal. Ins. Code Ann. § 13801 et seq. and § 790.15.

53 Id. at § 13804. (a) (“Any insurer currently doing business in the state that sold life, property, liability, health, annuities, dowry, educational, or casualty insurance policies, directly or through a related company, to persons in Europe, which were in effect between 1920 and 1945, whether the sale occurred before or after the insurer and the related company became related.”)

54 Id. at § 13801 (f) (“This chapter is necessary to protect the claims and interests of California residents, as well as to encourage the development of a resolution to these issues through the international process or through direct action by the State of California, as necessary.”).

55 Supra note 8.

56 Id. at 415. (“At a more specific level, our cases have recognized that the President has authority to make “executive agreements” with other countries, requiring no ratification by the Senate or approval by Congress, this power having been exercised since the early years of the Republic.”)

57 Filed originally in New York (No. 96-CV-5310 (S.D.N.Y. filed July 17, 1996)) but transferred by consent to the federal district court in Illinois (No. 96-C-6459 (N.D. Ill)). The case revolved around a painting by Degas, Edgar, Landscape with Smokestacks, purchased by Friedrich, and Gutmann, Louise, in 1932Google Scholar and sent in 1939 to a Paris art dealer for safe keeping. The Gutmanns were killed by the Nazis and the Degas piece, along with the rest of their art collection, was looted by the Nazis. In 1994, the Degas was finally discovered in the collection of Daniel Searle, the Chicago pharmaceutical magnate, by Simon Goodman, the Gutmann's grandson. The case—a good illustration of many similar disputes over rightful ownership of valuable art stolen by the Nazis—would have been the first dispute to be tried in the U.S, but it was eventually settled out of court in August, 1998 with the parties splitting equally the ownership of the picture. Searle donated his half to the Art Institute of Chicago and the Gutmann heirs sold their share for onehalf of the appraised value. See Case over Painting stolen by Nazis Settled, CNN, Aug. 14, 1998, available at http://www.cnn.com/US/9808/14/looted.art/; Henry, Marilyn, Holocaust Victims' Heirs Reach Accord on Stolen Art, Jerusalem Post Service, Aug. 21, 1998Google Scholar; Yonover, Geri, The “Last Prisoners of War” Unrestituted Nazi-Looted Art, 6 J. L. & Soc. Challenges 81, 8788 (2004).Google Scholar

58 Proceedings of the Washington Conference on Holocaust-Era Assets (Released by the Office of the Coordinator for the Washington Conference on Holocaust-Era Assets) (Bindenagel, J.D. ed., Apr. 1999)Google Scholar, available at http://www.state.gov/www/regions/eur/holocaust/heaca.pdf.

59 United States Department of State, Washington Conference Principles on Nazi-Confiscated Art at Arts. 8 & 11 (Dec. 3, 1998)Google Scholar, available at http://www.state.gov/p/eur/rt/hlcst/23231.htm.

60 Spoliation Advisory Panel, available at http://www.culture.gov.uk/3296.aspx (Nov. 16, 2008) (“The Spoliation Advisory Panel resolves claims from people, or their heirs, who lost property during the Nazi era which is now held in UK national collections). Id.

61 Id.

62 Alberge, Dalya, Courtauld Returns Looted Art to Nazi Victims, Times, Jan. 25, 2997Google Scholar, available at http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/markets/europe/article1295932.ece.

63 [2005] EWHC 1089 (Ch), [2005] Ch 397.

64 SirHirst, David, Report of the Spoliation Advisory Panel in Respect of Four Drawings Now in the Possession of the British Museum (Apr. 26, 2006)Google Scholar available at http://www.culture.gov.uk/images/publications/HC1052_SAPreport.pdf.

(1. This claim is brought on behalf of the heirs of the late Dr Arthur Feldmann in respect of four drawings now in the possession of the British Museum. The claimants contend that they lost possession of the drawings on 15 March 1939 when the drawings, together with the rest of Dr Feldmann's large collection, were seized by the Gestapo in his villa in Brno, on the day the Germans invaded Czechoslovakia.)

65 Id.

66 See generally, XXII Trial of the Major War Criminals Before the International Military Tribunal 411,466 (1948).Google Scholar

67 28 U.S.C. § 1350.

68 1 Stat. 73 92 (1789).

69 Id.

70 Born, Gary B., International Civil Litigation in United States Courts 493-97, 549–50 (3d ed. 1996)Google Scholar.

71 630 F. 2d 876 (2d Cir. 1980).

72 Id. at 878. (“Dr. Joel Filartiga, a physician, describes himself as a longstanding opponent of the government of President Alfredo Stroessner, which has held power in Paraguay since 1954.”).

73 Id. (“In July of 1978, Pena sold his house in Paraguay and entered the United States under a visitor's visa.”)

74 Id. at 887. (“[w]e believe it is sufficient here to construe the Alien Tort Statute, not as granting new rights to aliens, but simply as opening the federal courts for adjudication of the rights alreay recognized by international law.”).

75 Id. at 880. (“we find that an act of torture committed by a state official against one held in detention violates established norms of the international law of human rights, and hence the law of nations.”)

76 See Born, supra note 70, at 33. Judges Higgins, Kooijmans and Buergenthal said in their joint separate opinion in Democratic Republic of the Congo v. Belgium (Case concerning Arrest Warrant of 11 April 2000), 2002 I.C.J. 3, at ¶ 48, that the jurisdiction exercised under the Alien Tort Claims Act in relation to acts perpetrated by non-nationals overseas had much been commented on, but had not attracted the approbation of states generally.

77 726 F. 2d 774 (D.C. Cir. 1984), cert. denied, 470 U.S. 1003 (1985).

78 Id. at 774.

79 103 F. 3d 767 (9th Cir. 1996).

80 67 F. Supp. 2d 424 (D. N.J. 1999).

81 114F. Supp. 2d 117 (E.D.N.Y. 2000).

82 Id. at 127.

83 542 U.S. 692 (2004). See also In re South African Apartheid Legislation, 346 F. Supp. 2d 538 (S.D.N.Y. 2004); Jogi v. Voges, 425 F. 3d 367 (7th Cir. 2005), 480 F. 3d 822 (7th Cir. 2007); Aldana v. Del Monte Fresh Produce, N.A., Inc, 452 F 3d 1284 (11th Cir 2006); Hereros ex rel Riruako v Deutsche Africa-Linien GmbH & Co, 232 Fed Appx 90 (3d Cir 2007); Sarei v Rio Tinto, plc, 487 F 3d 1193 (9th Cir 2007); Vietnam As'n for Victims of Agent Orange v. Dow Chemical Co., 517 F.3d 104 (2d Cir. 2008).

84 Id. at 697.

85 Id. at 715.

86 Almog v. Arab Bank, 471 F. Supp. 2d 257 (E.D.N.Y. 2007). Contrast Saperstein v. Palestinian Authority, 2006 WL 3804718 (S.D. Fla. 2006). Cf Weiss v. American Jewish Committee, 335 F. Supp. 2d 469 (S.D.N.Y. 2004). See also Khulumani v. Barclay National Bank Ltd., 504 F. 3d 254 (2d Cir. 2007) (aiding and abetting apartheid regime in South Africa).

87 See infra note 120.

88 Princz v. Federal Republic of Germany, 26 F. 3d 1166 (D.C. Cir. 1995).

89 Id. at 1168.

90 Id. at 1172.

91 Id. at 1172-75.

92 Republic of Austria v. Altmann, 541 U.S. 677 (2004).

93 His wife Adele Bloch-Bauer became the only model who was ever painted twice by Klimt, and was reputed to have been his lover. Her niece remembers asking her mother about the rumored love affair between Klimt and her aunt. “My mother got mad and said, ‘How dare you ask such a thing? It was an intellectual friendship,’ ” she recalled. “But I think it was very possible there was a romance.” Vogel, Carol, Lauder Pays $135 Million, a Record, for a Klimt, N.Y. TIMES, June 19,2006Google Scholar, available at http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/19/arts/design/19klim.html?hp&ex=1150689600&en=daf50a1f5c42ffOa&ei=5094&partner=homepage.

94 Republic of Austria v. Altmann, supra note 92, at 704 (Breyer J. concurring).

95 Id.

96 Id. at ¶ 2.

97 Id.

98 Id.

99 Id.

100 Id.

101 Id. at ¶ 5.

102 Id. at ¶ 6.

103 Convention Respecting the Laws and Customs of War and Land, Oct. 18, 1907.

104 28 U.S.C. § 1602 et seq.

105 28 U.S.C. § 1605 (3).

106 Id.

107 Republic of Austria v. Altmann, supra note 92.

108 Id. at 657. (“To begin with, the preamble of the FSIA expresses Congress' understanding that the Act would apply to all postenactment claims of sovereign immunity. That section provides: “Claims of foreign states to immunity should henceforth be decided by courts of the United States and of the States in conformity with the principles set forth in this chapter.” 28 U.S.C. § 1602 (emphasis added L.C.).”).

109 Vogel, supra note 93.

110 389 F.3d 61 (2d Cir. 2004).

111 Id. at 63.

112 Id.

113 R v. Bow Street Metropolitan Stipendiary Magistrate, Ex p Pinochet (No 3) [2000] 1 AC 147.

114 Prosecutor v. Furundzija, reprinted in 38 I.L.M. 317 (1998).

115 965 F. 2d 699 (9th Cir. 1992).

116 See, e.g., Princz v. Germany, supra note 88; Sampson v. Germany, 250 F. 3d 1145 (7th Cir. 2001); Hwang Geum Joo v. Japan, 172 F. Supp. 2d 52 (D.D.C. 2001).

117 [2006] UKHL 26, [2007] 1 AC 270.

118 (2002) 124 ILR 427, (2004) 71 OR (3d) 67.

119 Al-Adsani v. United Kingdom, App. NO. 35763/97, 34 Eur. H.R. Rep. 273 (2002), applied in Kalogeropoulou v. Greece and Germany (December 2000).

120 Congo v. Belgium, supra note 76.

121 See Bianchi, Andrea, Ferrini v. Repubblica Federale di Germania (Cass. Mar. 11, 2004) (Sez. Un.), 99 AM. J. INT'l. L. 242 (2005)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

On December 23, 2008 Germany instituted proceedings before the International Court of Justice against Italy, claiming that Italian courts in recent years had repeatedly disregarded the jurisdictional immunity of Germany as a sovereign state, and that the critical stage of that development was reached by the judgment in the Ferrini case. Germany has requested the International Court to adjudge and declare that Italy:

(1) by allowing civil claims based on violations of international humanitarian law by the German Reich during World War II from September 1943 to May 1945 to be brought against the Federal Republic of Germany, committed violations of obligations under international law in that it has failed to respect the jurisdictional immunity which the Federal Republic of Germany enjoys under international law; (2) by taking measures of constraint against “Villa Vigoni” [the German-Italian centre for cultural exchange], German State property used for government non-commercial purposes, also committed violations of Germany's jurisdictional immunity; (3) by declaring Greek judgments based on occurrences similar to those defined above in request No. 1 enforceable in Italy, committed a further breach of Germany's jurisdictional immunity.

122 Id. at 242.

123 Greek Citizens v. Germany (the Distomo Massacre case), reprinted in 42 I.L.M. 1030 (2003).

124 Baker v. Carr, 369 U.S. 186 (1962).

125 Id. at 210.

126 Id. at 217.

127 R (on the application of Gentle) v. Prime Minister [2006] EWCA Civ 1689, [2007] Q.B. 689; aff'd [2008] UKHL 20, [2008] 2 W.L.R. 879.

128 [2006] UKHL 16, [2007] 1 AC 136.

129 HCJ 769/02 The Public Committee Against Torture in Israel v. The Government of Israel [Dec. 13, 2006] (unpublished), an English translation is available at http://elyon1.court.gov.il/files_eng/02/690/007/a34/02007690.a34.pdf. [hereinafter Targeted Killings case].

130 Id. at ¶ 48.

131 937 F.2d 44,49 (2d Cir. 1991).

132 Baker v. Carr, supra note 124, at 217.

133 Targeted Killings case, supra note 129, at ¶ 48.

134 Id. at ¶ 56.

135 HCJ 3239/02 Marab v. IDF Commander in the West Bank [2002] IsrSC 57(2)349.

136 HCJ 606/78 Oyeb v. The Minister of Defense IsrSC [1978] IsrSC 33(2) 113, 124.

137 HCJ 390/79 Duikat v. The Government of Israel [1979] IsrSC 34(1) 1, 15.

138 HCJ 7957/04 Mara'abe v. The Prime Minister of Israel [2005] IsrSC 38(2) 393,¶ 31, an English translation is available at http://elyon1.court.gov.il/files_eng/04/570/079/a14/04079570.a14.pdf.

139 Targeted Killings case, supra note 129.

140 70 F. 3d 232 (2d Cir. 1995).

141 Id. at 249.

142 The Role of the Supreme Court in the Fight against Terrorism, 37 Isr. L. Rev. 281,284 (2003/2004)Google Scholar.

143 601 F. Supp. 1421 (C.D. Cal. 1985). But cf. Kadic v. Karadzic, 70 F. 3d 232 (2d Cir 1995).

144 Id. 601 F. Supp. 1437.

145 Id. at 1425-26.

146 Burger-Fischer v. Degussa AG, 65 F. Supp. 2d 248,282 (D.N.J. 1999); Iwanowa v. Ford Motor Co., 67 F. Supp. 2d 424,489 (D.N.J. 1999).

147 114 F. Supp 2d 117 (E.D.N.Y. 2000).

148 The Prime Minister's Office Study Mission into the looting of Jewish assets in France established in France in 1997 to study theft of property during World War II. Its final report was published in 2000.

149 410 F. 3d 532 (9th Cir. 2005).

150 Id. at 560.

151 Id. at 548, citing Koohi v. United States, 976 F.2d 1328 at 1332 (9th Cir. 1992).

152 413 F. 3d 45 (D.C. Cir. 2005).

153 539 U.S. 396 (2003).

154 Id. at 399.

155 Id. at 427.

156 Id. at 442-43.

157 113 Cal. App. 4th 55 (2003).

158 Id. at 60.

159 Id. at 63.

160 Id.

161 Id. at 63-64.

162 Treaty of Peace with Japan, Sept. 8, 1951, 3 U.S.T. 3169, T.I.A.S. No. 2490.

163 West' Ann. Cal. C.C.P. § 354.6, Second World War Slave or Forced Labor Victims; Heirs; Actions for Recovery of Compensation; Limitations (1999).

164 317 F.3d 692 (9th Cir. 2003).

165 Id. at 704.

166 Id. at 703.

167 Agreement Concerning the Foundation “Remembrance, Responsibility and the Future,” July 17, 2000, U.S.-F.R.G., reprinted in 39 I.L.M. 1298 (2000) [hereinafter German Foundation]. See also The Law on the Creation of a Foundation “Remembrance, Responsibility and Future,” Aug. 2, 2000, entered into force Aug. 12, 2000, Federal Law Gazette I 1263, last amended by the Law of Sept. 1, 2008, entered into force Sept. 9, 2008, Federal Law Gazette I 1797, available at http://www.stiftung-evz.de/eng/foundation_remembrance_responsibility_and_future/foundation_law.

168 The Berlin Accords arose out of the In re Holocaust Victim Assets Litigation, supra note 15. The Fund established as part of the settlement of Holocaust Victim Assets Litigation, is also known as the Berlin Accords. The German government supplied $2.5 billion to the fund, via an agreement fashioned between then President Bill Clinton and then German Chancellor, Gerhard Schroeder.

169 Joint Statement on occasion of the final plenary meeting concluding international talks on the preparation of the Foundation “Remembrance, Responsibility and the Future” (July 17, 2000), available at http://germany.usembassy.gov/germany/img/assets/8497/jointstatement.pdf.

170 See German Foundation, supra note 167.

171 See generally, supra note 167.

172 German Foundation, supra note 167, annex A, P 1, 139 I.L.M. at 1300-1301 (Annex A is titled “Principles Governing the Operation of the Foundation”).

173 Id. at Art. 1

(1) The parties agree that the Foundation “Remembrance, Responsibility and the Future” covers, and that it would be in their interests for the Foundation to be the exclusive remedy and forum for the resolution of, all claims that have been or may be asserted against German companies arising from the National Socialist era and World War II.

174 Id. at Art. 2(1).

175 Id. at Art. 3 ¶¶ (3) & (4).

(3) The United States will not raise any reparations claims against the Federal Republic of Germany.

(4) The United States shall take appropriate steps to oppose any challenge to the sovereign immunity of the Federal Republic of Germany with respect to any claim that may be asserted against the Federal Republic of Germany concerning the consequences of the National Socialist era and World War II.

176 Id. at Annex B.

177 United States v. Pink, 315 U.S. 203 (1942); Dames & Moore v. Regan, 453 U.S. 654 (1981).

178 In re Nazi Era Cases Against German Defendants Litigation, Matter of Simon Frumkin et al. v. JA Jones, Inc. et al., 129 F. Supp. 2d 370 (D. N.J. 2001).

179 Id. at 372. The Defendants in the case were Philipp Holzmann AG, Philipp Holzmann USA, and J.A. Jones, Inc., Id.

180 Id. at 389.

181 Id. at 387.

182 Id. at 389.

183 In re Nazi Era Cases against German Defendants Litigation, 196 Fed. Appx. 93, 2006 WL 2162308 (3d Cir. 2006).

184 Id. at 94 (citing In re Nazi Era Cases against German Defendants Litigation, 334 F.Supp.2d 690 (D.N.J. 2004).

185 Id.

186 In re Nazi Era Cases against German Defendants Litigation, 196 Fed. Appx. 93, 2006 WL 2162308 (3d Cir. 2006).

187 Id. at 102.

188 Id. at 99.

189 Id. at 96.

190 Id. at 98.

191 Id. at 94.

192 Id. at 96.

193 Fritsch, Jane, $52 Million for Lawyers' Fees In Nazi-Era Slave Labor Suits, N.Y. TIMES, June 15, 2001Google Scholar, available at http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=950DE4DC1731F936A25755 C0A9679C8B63.

Lawyers who represent Nazi-era slave laborers split more than $52 million in legal fees yesterday for work on a case that will bring Holocaust victims $5,000 to $7,500 each. Eleven lawyers were awarded more than $1 million each, with the biggest share, $6.3 million, going to Melvyn I. Weiss of the Manhattan law firm Milberg Weiss Bershad Hynes & Lerach. Michael D. Hausfeld of Washington was given $5 million, and Burt Neuborne, a professor at the New York University Law School, was awarded $4.4 million.

194 That lawyer has subsequently been imprisoned in connection with wholly unrelated matters.

195 See, e.g., Burt Neuborne, Letter to the Editor, (re: Hitchens, Christopher, Dead Souls, The Nation, Sept. 18/25, 2000)Google Scholar: The Nation, Oct. 5, 2000, available at http://www.thenation.com/doc/20001023/letter.

196 2007 WL 805768 (E.D.N.Y.).

197 Id. at 1.

198 Id. at 52.

199 Id.

200 Foxman, Abraham, The Dangers of Holocaust Restitution, ADL Opinion (Dec. 1998) at 2Google Scholar, available at http://www.adl.org/opinion/holocaust_restitution.asp.

201 Bazyler supra note 9, at 288, (citing Wieseltier, Leon, “Assets,” New Republic, NOV. 8, 1998, at 98)Google Scholar. See also Schoenfeld, Gabriel, Holocaust Reparations—A Growing Scandal, Commentary 1 (Sept. 2000)Google Scholar. For the well-known (or notorious) polemic in this sense see Finkelstein, supra note 10. Finkelstein's views received some support from the late Professor Hilberg, Raul, author of The Destruction of the European Jews (3rd ed. 2003)Google Scholar.

202 Eizenstat, Stuart, Imperfect Justice: Looted Assets, Slave Labor, and the Unfinished Business of World War II 343 (2004)Google Scholar.

203 Id.

204 Kadden, Daniel, Holocaust Restitution and the Claims Conference: Controversies over Organizational Accountability, Jewish Currents, July 2006, at 3Google Scholar, available at http://www.jewishcurrents.org/2006-july-kadden.htm.

205 Id.

206 Bazyler supra note 9, at 179.

207 Perspectives on the Litigation and Its Legacy, supra note 10, at 138.

208 Id. at 135,

209 Bazyler supra note 9, at 179.

210 Veraart, Wouter, ‘Reasonableness’or Strict Law? The Postwar Restitution of Property Rights in the Netherlands and France(1945-1952), Yad Vashem—The International Conference on Confronting History: The Historical Commission on Inquiry (Dec. 30, 2002)Google Scholar, available at http://www1.yadvashem.org/about_yad/departments/institutes/pdf/veraart_paper_revised_since_conference_new.pdf.

211 Bazyler supra note 9, at 179.

212 The relevant findings of the Bergier Commission and the CRT decision in the Uffenheimer case are set out by Judge Korman In re Holocaust Victims Assets Litigation, 302 F. Supp. 2d 59, 65-69 (E.D.N.Y. 2004).

213 In re Holocaust Victims Assets Litigation, 319 F. Supp. 2d 301, 305 (E.D.N.Y. 2004).

214 Id. at 306.

215 Id.

216 Id. at 308.

217 Id. at 309.

218 Eizenstat, Stuart, Imperfect Justice: Looted Assets, Slave Labor, and the Unfinished Business of World War II xi (in Foreword by Wiesel, Elie) (2004)Google Scholar.