Comparative Analysis on Immovable Property project was launched at the end of 2014. The database will document legislation related to restitution and compensation of immovable (real) property confiscated or otherwise wrongly seized by the Nazis during the period 1933 to 1945. The analysis will be the first and only compilation of this type of information. It will also be a dynamic tool, meaning that it can be updated and modified to reflect legal changes relating to ongoing restitution and compensation efforts.
The database will document restitution across three main categories:
- community property
- private property
- unclaimed property
The survey will evaluate completed restitution programs in signatory countries and compare the quantity of property seized to property restituted. The project is expected to be completed by August 2015.
Prof. Michael J. Bazyler and Lee Crawford Boyd are co-directing the project, which has already brought together the research efforts of over 40 pro bono attorneys from major global law firms including White & Case, O’Melveny & Myers, Morgan Lewis, Fried Frank, and Brownstein Hyatt Farber & Schreck. These pro bono attorneys, under the guidance of the directors and their associates, completed research reports addressing the status of restitution legislation in a particular Terezin Declaration country. The reports also provided a preliminary analysis on the country’s compliance with its Terezin Declaration commitments.
The project team has analyzed the reports of the pro bono attorneys, supplementing them with its own data, and finalized questionnaires addressed to each Terezin Declaration government (to be completed online). The questionnaire will seek to confirm data already gathered by the pro bono attorneys and the project team, as well as to fill-in any remaining gaps in information relating to restitution legislation and case law.
Once the government questionnaires are returned, responsive data will be reviewed and organized by the project co-directors and their team prior to publication in the database.
The aim of the database is to serve as an accountability mechanism which will assist ESLI and other organizations with monitoring compliance with the principles of the Terezin Declaration and with promoting the idea of enhanced restitution/compensation at the intergovernmental level.