Holocaust Expropriated Art Recovery Act of 2016 Public Law 114–308, as amended Holocaust Expropriated Art Recovery Act of 2016 308 119–82 Statute Compilation United States House of Representatives Office of the Legislative Counsel text/xml EN Pursuant to Title 17 Section 105 of the United States Code, this file is not subject to copyright protection and is in the public domain. GPO Statute Compilations USLM converter, version 20240419 2026-04-17 Holocaust Expropriated Art Recovery Act of 2016 16517 114 2016-12-16 Holocaust Expropriated Art Recovery Act of 2016 [(Public Law 114–308; 22 U.S.C. 1621 note)] [As Amended Through P.L. 119–82, Enacted April 13, 2026] [Currency: This publication is a compilation of the text of Public Law 114–308. It was last amended by the public law listed in the As Amended Through note above and below at the bottom of each page of the pdf version and reflects current law through the date of the enactment of the public law listed at https://www.govinfo.gov/app/collection/comps/] [Note: While this publication does not represent an official version of any Federal statute, substantial efforts have been made to ensure the accuracy of its contents. The official version of Federal law is found in the United States Statutes at Large and in the United States Code. The legal effect to be given to the Statutes at Large and the United States Code is established by statute (1 U.S.C. 112, 204).]
AN ACTTo 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. [22 U.S.C. 1621 note] 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 hundreds of thousands of works of art and other property 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 43 other 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) Victims of Nazi persecution and their heirs have taken legal action in the United States 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., 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 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 necessary to ensure that claims to Nazi-confiscated art are adjudicated in accordance with United States policy as expressed in the Washington Conference Principles on Nazi-Confiscated Art, the Holocaust Victims Redress Act, and the Terezin Declaration. (8) The intent of this Act is to permit claims to recover Nazi-looted art to be brought, notwithstanding the passage of time since World War II. Some courts have frustrated the intent of this Act by dismissing recovery lawsuits in reliance on defenses based on the passage of time, such as laches (for example, Zuckerman v Metropolitan Museum of Art, 928 F.3d 186 (2d Cir. 2019)) or adverse possession, acquisitive prescription, or usucapion (for example, Cassirer v. Thyssen-Bornemisza Foundation, 89 F.4th 1226 (9th Cir. 2024)) or on other non-merits discretionary defenses, such as the act of state doctrine (for example, Von Saher v Norton Simon Museum of Art at Pasadena, 897 F.3d 1141 (9th Cir. 2018)), forum non conveniens, international comity, or prudential exhaustion. In order to effectuate the purpose of the Act to permit claims to recover Nazi-looted art to be resolved on the merits, these defenses must be precluded. (9) This Act also is intended to allow claims in accordance with the procedures under this Act for the recovery of artwork or other property lost during the covered period because, or as a result, of Nazi persecution, including by a covered government (as defined in section 1605(h)(3)(B) of title 28, United States Code) or an agent or associate of a covered government, regardless of the nationality or citizenship of the alleged victim, notwithstanding the “domestic takings” rule under Federal Republic of Germany v. Philipp, 592 U.S. 169 (2021). (10) While litigation may be used to resolve claims to recover Nazi-confiscated art, it is the sense of Congress that the private resolution of claims by parties involved, on the merits and through the use of alternative dispute resolution such as mediation panels established for this purpose with the aid of experts in provenance research and history, may, in some circumstances, yield just and fair resolutions as well.
SEC. 3. PURPOSES. The purposes of this Act are the following: (1) To ensure that laws governing claims to Nazi-confiscated art and other property 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 and other property stolen or misappropriated by the Nazis are not unfairly barred by statutes of limitations1and other non-merits defenses but are resolved in a just and fair manner.1

Section 2(a)(2) of Public Law 119–82 amends section 3(2) by inserting “and other non-merits defenses” after “statutes of limitation”. The phrase “statutes of limitation” should have been “statutes of limitation[s]”, however, such amendment was carried out to reflect the probable intent of Congress.
SEC. 4. DEFINITIONS. In this Act: (1) Actual discovery.—The term “actual discovery” means knowledge. (2) Artwork or other property.—The term “artwork or other property” means— (A) pictures, paintings, and drawings; (B) statuary art and sculpture; (C) engravings, prints, lithographs, and works of graphic art; (D) applied art and original artistic assemblages and montages; (E) books, archives, musical objects and manuscripts (including musical manuscripts and sheets), and sound, photographic, and cinematographic archives and mediums; and (F) sacred and ceremonial objects and Judaica. (3) Covered period.—The term “covered period” means the period beginning on January 1, 1933, and ending on December 31, 1945. (4) Knowledge.—The term “knowledge” means having actual knowledge of a fact or circumstance or sufficient information with regard to a relevant fact or circumstance to amount to actual knowledge thereof. (5) Nazi persecution.—The term “Nazi persecution” means any persecution of a specific group of individuals based on Nazi ideology by the Government of Germany, its allies or agents, members of the Nazi Party, or their agents or associates, during the covered period.
SEC. 5. STATUTE OF LIMITATIONS. (a) In General.—Notwithstanding any other provision of Federal or State law or any defense at law relating to the passage of time, and except as otherwise provided in this section, a civil claim or cause of action against a defendant to recover any artwork or other property that was lost during the covered period because of Nazi persecution 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 other property; and (2) a possessory interest of the claimant in the artwork or other property. (b) Relation to Foreign State Immunities.—Notwithstanding any other law or prior judicial decision, any civil claim or cause of action covered by subsection (a) shall be deemed to be an action in which rights in violation of international law are in issue for purposes of section 1605(a)(3) of title 28, United States Code, without regard to the nationality or citizenship of the alleged victim. (c) Possible Misidentification.—For purposes of subsection (a)(1), in a case in which the artwork or other property is one of a group of substantially similar multiple artworks or other property, actual discovery of the identity and location of the artwork or other property shall be deemed to occur on the date on which there are facts sufficient to form a substantial basis to believe that the artwork or other property is the artwork or other property that was lost. (d) Preexisting Claims.—Except as provided in subsection (h), a civil claim or cause of action described in subsection (a) shall be deemed to have been actually discovered on the date of enactment of this Act if— (1) before the date of enactment of this Act— (A) a claimant had knowledge of the elements set forth in subsection (a); and (B) the civil claim or cause of action was barred by a Federal or State statute of limitations; or (2)(A) before the date of enactment of this Act, a claimant had knowledge of the elements set forth in subsection (a); and (B) on the date of enactment of this Act, the civil claim or cause of action was not barred by a Federal or State statute of limitations. (e) Applicability.—Subsections (a), (b), (f), and (g) shall apply to any civil claim or cause of action that is— (1) pending in any court on the date of enactment of this Act, including any civil claim or cause of action that is pending on appeal or for which the time to file an appeal has not expired; or (2) filed on or after the date of enactment of this Act. (f) Defenses Based on Passage of Time and Other Non-Merits Defenses.—With respect to any claim that is otherwise timely under this Act— (1) all defenses or substantive doctrines based on the passage of time, including laches, adverse possession, acquisitive prescription, and usucapion, may not be applied with respect to the claim; and (2) all non-merits discretionary bases for dismissal, including the act of state doctrine, international comity, forum non conveniens, prudential exhaustion, and similar doctrines unrelated to the merits, may not be applied with respect to the claim. (g) Nationwide Service of Process.—For a civil action brought under subsection (a) in any State or Federal court, process may be served in the judicial district where the case is brought or any other judicial district of the United States where the defendant may be found, resides, has an agent, or transacts business. (h) Exception.—Subsection (a) shall not apply to any civil claim or cause of action barred on the day before the date of enactment of this Act by a Federal or State statute of limitations if— (1) the claimant or a predecessor-in-interest of the claimant had knowledge of the elements set forth in subsection (a) on or after January 1, 1999; and (2) not less than 6 years have passed from the date such claimant or predecessor-in-interest acquired such knowledge and during which time the civil claim or cause of action was not barred by a Federal or State statute of limitations. (i) Rule of Construction.—Nothing in this Act shall be construed to create a civil claim or cause of action under Federal or State law.
SEC. 6. SEVERABILITY. If any provision of this Act, or the application of a provision of this Act to any person or circumstance, is held invalid, the remainder of this Act, and the application of such provision to other persons and circumstances, shall not be affected thereby.