[Congressional Bills 114th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[S. 2763 Introduced in Senate (IS)]

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114th CONGRESS
  2d Session
                                S. 2763

 To provide the victims of Holocaust-era persecution and their heirs a 
fair opportunity to recover works of art confiscated or misappropriated 
                             by the Nazis.


_______________________________________________________________________


                   IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES

                             April 7, 2016

  Mr. Cornyn (for himself, Mr. Cruz, Mr. Schumer, and Mr. Blumenthal) 
introduced the following bill; which was read twice and referred to the 
                       Committee on the Judiciary

_______________________________________________________________________

                                 A BILL


 
 To provide the victims of Holocaust-era persecution and their heirs a 
fair opportunity to recover works of art confiscated or misappropriated 
                             by the Nazis.

    Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the 
United States of America in Congress assembled,

SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.

    This Act may be cited as the ``Holocaust Expropriated Art Recovery 
Act of 2016''.

SEC. 2. FINDINGS.

    Congress finds the following:
            (1) It is estimated that the Nazis confiscated or otherwise 
        misappropriated as many as 650,000 works of art throughout 
        Europe as part of their genocidal campaign against the Jewish 
        people and other persecuted groups. This has been described as 
        the ``greatest displacement of art in human history''.
            (2) Following World War II, the United States and its 
        allies attempted to return the stolen artworks to their 
        countries of origin. Despite these efforts, many works of art 
        were never reunited with their owners. Some of the art has 
        since been discovered in the United States.
            (3) In 1998, the United States convened a conference with 
        44 nations in Washington, DC, known as the Washington 
        Conference, which produced Principles on Nazi-Confiscated Art. 
        One of these principles is that ``steps should be taken 
        expeditiously to achieve a just and fair solution'' to claims 
        involving such art that has not been restituted if the owners 
        or their heirs can be identified.
            (4) The same year, Congress enacted the Holocaust Victims 
        Redress Act (Public Law 105-158, 112 Stat. 15), which expressed 
        the sense of Congress that ``all governments should undertake 
        good faith efforts to facilitate the return of private and 
        public property, such as works of art, to the rightful owners 
        in cases where assets were confiscated from the claimant during 
        the period of Nazi rule and there is reasonable proof that the 
        claimant is the rightful owner.''.
            (5) In 2009, the United States participated in a Holocaust 
        Era Assets Conference in Prague, Czech Republic, with 45 other 
        nations. At the conclusion of this conference, the 
        participating nations issued the Terezin Declaration, which 
        reaffirmed the 1998 Washington Conference Principles on Nazi-
        Confiscated Art and urged all participants ``to ensure that 
        their legal systems or alternative processes, while taking into 
        account the different legal traditions, facilitate just and 
        fair solutions with regard to Nazi-confiscated and looted art, 
        and to make certain that claims to recover such art are 
        resolved expeditiously and based on the facts and merits of the 
        claims and all the relevant documents submitted by all 
        parties.''. The Declaration also urged participants to 
        ``consider all relevant issues when applying various legal 
        provisions that may impede the restitution of art and cultural 
        property, in order to achieve just and fair solutions, as well 
        as alternative dispute resolution, where appropriate under 
        law.''.
            (6) Numerous victims of Nazi persecution and their heirs 
        have taken legal action to recover Nazi-confiscated art. These 
        lawsuits face significant procedural obstacles partly due to 
        State statutes of limitations, which typically bar claims 
        within some limited number of years from either the date of the 
        loss or the date that the claim should have been discovered. In 
        some cases, this means that the claims expired before World War 
        II even ended. (See, e.g., The Detroit Institute of Arts v. 
        Ullin, No. 06-10333, 2007 WL 1016996 (E.D. Mich. Mar. 31, 
        2007).) The unique and horrific circumstances of World War II 
        and the Holocaust make statutes of limitations and other time-
        based procedural defenses especially burdensome to the victims 
        and their heirs. Those seeking recovery of Nazi-confiscated art 
        must painstakingly piece together their cases from a 
        fragmentary historical record ravaged by persecution, war, and 
        genocide. This costly process often cannot be done within the 
        time constraints imposed by existing law.
            (7) Federal legislation is needed because the only court 
        that has considered the question held that the Constitution 
        prohibits States from making exceptions to their statutes of 
        limitations to accommodate claims involving the recovery of 
        Nazi-confiscated art. In Von Saher v. Norton Simon Museum of 
        Art, 592 F.3d 954 (9th Cir. 2009), the United States Court of 
        Appeals for the Ninth Circuit invalidated a California law that 
        extended the State statute of limitations for claims seeking 
        recovery of Holocaust-era artwork. The Court held that the law 
        was an unconstitutional infringement of the Federal 
        Government's exclusive authority over foreign affairs, which 
        includes the resolution of war-related disputes. In light of 
        this precedent, the enactment of a Federal law is the best way 
        to ensure that claims to Nazi-confiscated art are adjudicated 
        on their merits.

SEC. 3. PURPOSES.

    The purposes of this Act are the following:
            (1) To ensure that laws governing claims to Nazi-
        confiscated art further United States policy as set forth in 
        the Washington Conference Principles on Nazi-Confiscated Art, 
        the Holocaust Victims Redress Act, and the Terezin Declaration.
            (2) To ensure that claims to artwork stolen or 
        misappropriated by the Nazis are not barred by statutes of 
        limitations and other similar legal doctrines but are resolved 
        in a just and fair manner on the merits.

SEC. 4. DEFINITIONS.

    In this Act--
            (1) the term ``actual discovery'' does not include any 
        constructive knowledge imputed by law;
            (2) the term ``artwork or other cultural property'' 
        includes any painting, sculpture, drawing, work of graphic art, 
        print, multiples, book, manuscript, archive, or sacred or 
        ceremonial object;
            (3) the term ``persecution during the Nazi era'' means any 
        persecution by the Nazis or their allies during the period from 
        January 1, 1933, to December 31, 1945, that was based on race, 
        ethnicity, or religion; and
            (4) the term ``unlawfully lost'' includes any theft, 
        seizure, forced sale, sale under duress, or any other loss of 
        an artwork or cultural property that would not have occurred 
        absent persecution during the Nazi era.

SEC. 5. STATUTE OF LIMITATIONS.

    (a) In General.--Notwithstanding any other provision of Federal 
law, any provision of State law, or any defense at law or equity 
relating to the passage of time (including the doctrine of laches), a 
civil claim or cause of action against a defendant to recover any 
artwork or other cultural property unlawfully lost because of 
persecution during the Nazi era or for damages for the taking or 
detaining of any artwork or other cultural property unlawfully lost 
because of persecution during the Nazi era may be commenced not later 
than 6 years after the actual discovery by the claimant or the agent of 
the claimant of--
            (1) the identity and location of the artwork or cultural 
        property; and
            (2) information or facts sufficient to indicate that the 
        claimant has a claim for a possessory interest in the artwork 
        or cultural property that was unlawfully lost.
    (b) Possible Misidentification.--For purposes of subsection (a)(1), 
in a case in which there is a possibility of misidentification of the 
artwork or cultural property, the identification of the artwork or 
cultural property shall occur on the date on which there are facts 
sufficient to determine that the artwork or cultural property is likely 
to be the artwork or cultural property that was unlawfully lost.
    (c) Applicability.--
            (1) In general.--Subsection (a) shall apply to any civil 
        claim or cause of action (including a civil claim or cause of 
        action described in paragraph (2)) that is--
                    (A) pending on the date of enactment of this Act; 
                or
                    (B) filed during the period beginning on the date 
                of enactment of this Act and ending on December 31, 
                2026.
            (2) Inclusion of previously dismissed claims.--A civil 
        claim or cause of action described in this paragraph is a civil 
        claim or cause of action--
                    (A) that was dismissed before the date of enactment 
                of this Act based on the expiration of a Federal or 
                State statute of limitations or any other defense at 
                law or equity relating to the passage of time 
                (including the doctrine of laches); and
                    (B) in which final judgment has not been entered.
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