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RDG
online Restitution Discussion Group Archives |
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In the US, an important case arising out of the Nazi
occupation of Croatia and their installation of a puppet regime:
"The Complaint describes in detail the atrocities inflicted
on the Holocaust Survivors during World War II by the Ustasha and, more
generally, by allied Fascists “believed to be Croatians.” In addition
to describing the looting of assets, the Complaint recites genocidal acts
of the Ustasha, including those carried out at the “Jasenovac Concentration
Camp complex, termed by historians as the ‘Auschwitz of the Balkans.’
” Upon the collapse of the Ustasha regime in 1945, the Holocaust Survivors
maintain that “all or a portion of the Ustasha Treasury was transferred
to cooperative Roman Catholic clergyman [sic] and Franciscans for transport
to Rome where Franciscans sympathetic to the Ustasha were based.” These
funds eventually found their way into the hands of the Vatican Bank, among
other recipients. As alleged in the Complaint, “A 1948 U.S. Army Intelligence
reports [sic] confirmed 2,400 kilos of Ustasha stolen gold were moved
from the Vatican to one of the Vatican’s secret Swiss bank accounts.”
In the decades following World War II, the Holocaust Survivors contend
that the Vatican Bank and the Croatian Liberation Movement continued to
profit from transactions involving the Ustasha treasury."
The case is in the US 9th circuit and the 9th CCA has
decided by a majority that some causes of action (conversion, unjust enrichment,
restitution, accounting) should not be struck out on the basis of the
"political question" doctrine", although this of course does not mean
the claims will succeed. Meanwhile the dissenting judge says,
"What the majority has unintentionally accomplished in
embracing this case is nothing less than the creation without legislation
of a World Court, an international tribunal with breathtaking and limitless
jurisdiction to entertain the World’s failures, no matter where they happen,
when they happen, to whom they happen, the identity of the wrongdoer,
and the sovereignty of one of the parties."
For the judgments, see
http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/data2/circs/9th/0315208p.pdf
Lionel Smith
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