Law of Restitution

The University of Cambridge, Department of History of Art Seminar Series on the theme of 'ART & LAW' will take place every Wednesday from 18 January – 8 March 2017 at 5:00pm in the Department of History of Art, 1-5 Scroope Terrace, Cambridge CB2 1PX. Each lecture will be followed by a Q&A session and informal drinks reception. Members of the university and the general public are welcome to attend.

If you are interested in joining the speaker and organizers for dinner following a lecture, please contact Sarah Alexis Rabinowe at [email protected].

Nikola Samardžić NАTIONALIZATION, CONFISCATION AND RESTITUTION:
Historical, Legal and Political Issues Restitution is not just a return to a previous state. We cannot revive the past, and that is not really a point. Restitution is a new opportunity for our future, for everybody with the exception of corrupt pockets of society and state. Memory and attention are priority in the process, in relation to the pure material satisfaction of the damaged or descendants. Broadly socially based capitalism and transparent ownership structure should be the stronghold of our democratic future, the path that respects the wrongdoing victims in the past, assuming the wartime aggression and the Holocaust. I also suppose that descendants of the victims are not responsible for the actions of their ancestors. A very unique burden for Serbia and Yugoslavia is the Donauschwaben destiny. Such controversies may be oversimplified only with a presumption that a new totalitarian order performed the liberation from Nazism and Fascism,
with complex and long-term consequences related to the whole of the
Eastern Europe, which Yugoslavia was a special and particularly complicated case. Confiscation and nationalization have drastically altered the structure of ownership and general legal framework. Conflict with the previous political system involved a conflict with the wealthier urban and rural social circles. Already during the last months of enduring war a new ruling class has emerged entering into other’s villas, houses, flats, beds and slippers. New ruling class gradually assumed both social function and lifestyle of those defeated. Moreover, eventually was established a tacit consensus of winners and losers, as Yugoslavia was approaching Western influences and opening the borders, faced with the disastrous results of post-war transition and economic policy. From the late sixties intellectuals were increasingly challenging Tito’s regime
and value system, but only from the extreme left or nationalist platforms. Already during the seventies was permanently prevented eventual general Yugoslav consensus on democracy, the rule of law and transition to the capitalism. Confiscation and nationalization were significantly impeding modernization process, devastation of villages and ruralisation of the cities. Yugoslav and Serbian society was deprived of the dynamics, ethics, and driving force of capitalism. Gradual destruction of the private property culture, and state promoted, populist self-management kept the economic activity at the margins of profitability and market logic. Traditional urban classes were pauperized and intimidated.Post-war Sovietization and nationalism have transformed Serbia into failed state and futile economy. Despite all its controversies, restitution can be considered as an important reform process with deep and painful historical and ethical background: socialist revolution and Sovietization, the Holocaust and its relapse in nationalization and official hostility to Israel, on the other side of history the fate of the „Donauschwaben”, and, generally, crushing the backbones of modernization and democratization in both urban and rural development. Th at is why we decided to establish this permanent conference as the restitution process deserves the public and scientific attention and open, brave and transparent debate. I suppose that the priorities should be the ethic aspects of restitution, including the moral dilemmas, and all the benefits of our future economic, political and cultural development. Mutual rapprochement between the peoples originating from our former homeland should be implied. I am deeply convinced that the restitution should lead to a new moral consensus
that will be referred to all aspects and consequences of the Holocaust.
Negation of the idea of restitution, regardless of to whom it concerns, meaning individual nationality or national group, is implicit denial of the Holocaust, as post-war confiscation and nationalization concealed elements of deliberate and organized terror. But we need to discuss the collective reprisals against Donauschwaben. We need to recognize our own, Serbian victims. And we should be even more practical. Th ere is no democracy without the rule of law. And there is no capitalism without legally protected private property. There is no capitalism outside democratic world. Perhaps democracy is the best of all poor political systems. Maybe capitalism is the price we pay to human nature, driven predominantly by market constraints, and just exceptionally by entrepreneurial spirit and work ethic.

Since approval of the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) in 2016, it has been widely and repeatedly claimed that a 'right to explanation' of decisions made by automated or artificially intelligent algorithmic systems will be legally mandated by the GDPR. This right to explanation is viewed as an ideal mechanism to enhance the accountability and transparency of automated decision-making. However, there are several reasons to doubt both the legal existence and the feasibility of such a right. In contrast to the right to explanation of specific automated decisions claimed elsewhere, the GDPR only mandates that data subjects receive limited information (Articles 13-15) about the logic involved, as well as the significance and the envisaged consequences of automated decision-making systems, what we term a 'right to be informed'. Further, the ambiguity and limited scope of the 'right not to be subject to automated decision-making' contained in Article 22 (from which the alleged 'right to explanation' stems) raises questions over the protection actually afforded to data subjects. These problems show that the GDPR lacks precise language as well as explicit and well-defined rights and safeguards against automated decision-making, and therefore runs the risk of being toothless. We propose a number of legislative steps that, if taken, may improve the transparency and accountability of automated decision-making when the GDPR comes into force in 2018.

Introducing the Journal of Contemporary History Special Issue 'The Restitution of Looted Art in the 20 th Century', this article proposes a framework for writing the history of looting and restitution in transnational and global perspective. By comparing and contextualizing instances of looting and restitution in different geographical and temporal contexts, it aims to overcome existing historiographical fragmentations and move past the overwhelming focus on the specificities of Nazi looting through an extended timeframe that inserts the Second World War into a longer perspective from the nineteenth century up to present day restitution practices. Particular emphasis is put on the interlinked histories of denazification and decolonization. Problematizing existing analytical, chronological and geographical frameworks, the article suggests how a combination of comparative, entangled and global history approaches can open up promising new avenues of research. It draws out similarities, differences and connections between processes of looting and restitution in order to discuss the extent to which looting and restitution were shaped by – and shaped – changing global networks.