FINDINGS.

SEC. 201. FINDINGS. Congress finds as follows: (1) Established pre–World War II principles of international law, as enunciated in Articles 47 and 56 of the Regulations annexed to the 1907 Hague Convention (IV) Respecting the Laws and Customs of War on Land, prohibited pillage and the seizure of works of art. (2) In the years since World War II, international sanctions against confiscation of works of art have been amplified through such conventions as the 1970 Convention on the Means of Prohibiting and Preventing the Illicit Import, Export and Transfer of Ownership of Cultural Property, which forbids the illegal export of art work and calls for its earliest possible restitution to its rightful owner. (3) In defiance of the 1907 Hague Convention, the Nazis extorted and looted art from individuals and institutions in countries it occupied during World War II and used such booty to help finance their war of aggression. (4) The Nazis’ policy of looting art was a critical element and incentive in their campaign of genocide against individuals of Jewish and other religious and cultural heritage and, in this context, the Holocaust, while standing as a civil war against defined individuals and civilized values, must be considered a fundamental aspect of the world war unleashed on the continent. (5) Hence, the same international legal principles applied among states should be applied to art and other assets stolen from victims of the Holocaust. (6) In the aftermath of the war, art and other assets were transferred from territory previously controlled by the Nazis to the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, much of which has not been returned to rightful owners.