Art and Law Colloquium | A Just Future: International Law Requires Restitution of Nazi-Looted Art
April 9, 2026
About the Event
For this event Center for Art Law was in conversation with Raymond J. Dowd as he discussed his recent article Taking The Profit Out of War: Why International Law Requires Restitution of Nazi-Looted Art published in the Fordham Law Review Online.
Soft law? Or hard law? For decades diplomats, scholars and jurists have largely assumed that claimants to Nazi-looted art needed to rely on “soft law” — morality, ethics and decency, rather than the letter of the law, to obtain restitution of Nazi-looted art. Under this flawed assumption, the law, particularly in Europe, did not support restitution of Nazi-looted art. For many decades, based on this flawed assumption, advocates lobbying for “just and fair solutions” encouraging claimants to surrender property rights to persons possessing stolen property. In the shadow of the Cold War, table scraps were all that claimants could expect.
Taking the Profit Out of War argues against such surrenders. Attorney/author Raymond J. Dowd analyzes international instruments from 1907 through 2024 to demonstrate that claimants to Nazi-looted art — consisting largely of heirs of murdered Jewish victims — have property rights guaranteed by both public and private international law. Dowd takes the formal legal ban on confiscation of private property and the formal legal pillage ban found in Articles 28, 46, 47 and 56 of the 1907 Hague Conventions on Land Warfare (IV) as a starting point.
Taking the Profit Out of War argues that the Washington Conference Principles Best Practices (signed in 2024 by 34 countries) should not be viewed as “soft law” but more accurately as “hard law” because the Best Practices reflect international law. For example, Best Practices requires that Nazi-looted art be returned to heirs according to inheritance law. Dowd finds the same obligation to return Nazi-looted artworks in specific treaty commitments made at the close of World War II in the Bretton Woods Conference Final Act and in peace treaties with former Axis powers and neutrals to nullify acts of spoliation (and duress). Consistent with Best Practices, these international agreements and laws defeat good faith purchaser defenses and require restitution of Nazi-looted artworks.
Taking the Profit Out of War argues that France’s restitution law is the standard that other European nations should follow. Taking the Profit Out of War argues powerfully that nations that fail to provide restitution remedies through police powers or courts violate international law and the inheritance rights to personal property belonging to victims of murder or persecution. In the United States failing to provide restitution of personal property violates the U.S. constitution. In Europe such failures violate the European Convention on Human Rights.
Taking the Profit Out of War suggests workable solutions. It is a clarion call for prioritization of enforcement of stolen property laws consistent with international law. Additionally, it calls for the European Parliament to issue a directive requiring courts to be opened to restitution claims against public and private persons. If Nazi-looted art is not returned, the Hague Convention’s goal of taking profit out of land warfare will be defeated.
About the Speaker
Raymond J. Dowd is an attorney in private practice in New York who has acted as lead trial counsel for over twenty years in a number of landmark litigations involving Nazi-looted art. He has lectured widely on this topic and serves as an adjunct professor at Fordham Law School.
