Abstrakt
In 1998 representatives of 44 states convened the Washington Conference on Holocaust Era Assets, during which the Washington Conference Principles on Nazi-Confiscated Art were endorsed. This soft law was designed to help the pre-War owners and their heirs to recover Nazi-looted art.
However, even after almost 24 years, the goals set within these Principles are not fulfilled and there is still much Nazi-looted art in depositories waiting for its restitution, which leaves the Principles present in contemporary public discourse. So, does a non-binding law like principles contribute at all to certainty and especially to certainty of law? It does indeed and significantly.
Even though the Washington Conference's appeal to find a "just and fair solution" belongs to the sphere of soft law, this appeal became not only part of some national statutes, but also found its way in court reasoning and thus helped to unify the approach of particular signatories. The Core of this poster therefore constitutes a critical evaluation of these different ways to transform a vague and non-binding formulation into a binding rule that ensures specific rights of entitled persons.