ABSTRACT

In 2009, nearly fifty-five years after the United States played a major role in the drafting of the first international convention to address the protection of cultural property exclusively, the United States became a party to the 1954 Hague Convention on the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict. New developments concerning the United States’ implementation of the 1970 UNESCO Convention on the Means of Prohibiting and Preventing the Illicit Import, Export and Transfer of Ownership of Cultural Property through its legislation, the Convention on Cultural Property Implementation Act, continue to expand and test the parameters of the role of the United States in this international treaty regime. A decision concerning a painting looted during the Holocaust equally tests the extent of foreign sovereign immunity afforded under the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act. Finally, claims, recoveries, and restitution of looted, smuggled, and stolen cultural artifacts continued.