UvA-DARE (Digital Academic Repository) State immunity and cultural objects on loan van Woudenberg, N. Publication date 2011 Link to publication Citation for published version (APA): van Woudenberg, N. (2011). State immunity and cultural objects on loan. General rights It is not permitted to download or to forward/distribute the text or part of it without the consent of the author(s) and/or copyright holder(s), other than for strictly personal, individual use, unless the work is under an open content license (like Creative Commons). Disclaimer/Complaints regulations If you believe that digital publication of certain material infringes any of your rights or (privacy) interests, please let the Library know, stating your reasons. In case of a legitimate complaint, the Library will make the material inaccessible and/or remove it from the website. Please Ask the Library: https://uba.uva.nl/en/contact, or a letter to: Library of the University of Amsterdam, Secretariat, Singel 425, 1012 WP Amsterdam, The Netherlands. You will be contacted as soon as possible. UvA-DARE is a service provided by the library of the University of Amsterdam (https://dare.uva.nl) Download date:25 Sep 2021 Chapter 9 Situation in various other European States “Art works are now being used as hostages in trading disputes.”1 The number of European States with immunity from seizure legislation is slowly growing, although the majority of States does not have such legislation (yet). As the country reports of the United Kingdom and the Netherlands have been dealt with in separate chapters, infra an overview can be found of the situation in France, Germany, Austria, Belgium, Switzerland, Liechtenstein, Finland and the Czech Republic. The States are put in chronological order (date of legislation). This is followed by those States which are considering enacting legislation in the foreseeable future, and by considerations of several other Member States of the European Union concerning immunity from seizure legislation, including those States which do not see any merit in this. The chapter will be concluded with some words regarding the situation in the Russian Federation. I will not only pay attention to the possible legislation of the State concerned and the way leading to that legislation, but also to the question whether that State is of the opinion that a rule of customary international law exists, holding that cultural objects belonging to foreign States and on temporary loan are immune from seizure. 9.1 France 9.1.1 The Shchukin case2 In 1993, a French citizen, Irina Sergeevna Shchukina, who was the daughter of Sergei 1 Mikhail Piotrovsky, the Director of the State Hermitage Museum St. Petersburg, Russian Federation, in 2006, in reaction to the Swiss Noga case. 2 Stchoukine v. Le Centre National d’Art et de Culture Georges Pompidou, the Hermitage Museum St. Petersburg, the Pushkin Museum Moscow and the Russian Federation, Tribunal de Grande Instance Paris, 1ère Ch., 1ère Section, 16 June 1993, No. 6218/93, upheld on appeal by the Paris Court of Appeal. The judgment has not been published, but is on file with the author. See also: Mark M. Boguslavskij, ‘Irina Shchukina’s Suit (On the Decision of a French Court)’, International Journal of Cultural Property, 1995, Vol. 4, Issue 2, pp. 325-342. See also: Ruth Redmond-Cooper, ‘Disputed title to loaned works of art: the Shchukin litigation’, Art Antiquity and Law, February 1996, Vol. I, Issue 1, pp. 73-78. Repr. in: Norman Palmer, Art Loans, London, The Hague, Boston 1997, Appendix IX. See also: Alexander Kaplan, ‘The need for statutory protection from seizure for art exhibitions: the Egon Schiele seizures and the implications for major museums exhibitions’, Journal of Law & Policy, 1999, Vol. 7, pp. 691-744, at pp. 711-713. 293 Shchukin,3 filed suit against three Russian museums:4 the State Museum of Fine Arts (Pushkin Museum) in Moscow, the State Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg and the National Centre of Arts and Culture George Pompidou in Paris. The case was adjudicated by the Tribunal de Grande Instance in Paris.5 The Pompidou Centre borrowed for an exhibition, called Henri Matisse 1904-1917 which lasted from 25 February till 21 June 1993, a total of 130 objects, 21 of which were works of art by the French artist Henri Matisse,6 from the Pushkin Museum and the State Hermitage Museum. Many of the works once belonged to Sergei Shchukin, until on 29 October 1918 his collection was nationalised.7 Just before the cultural objects were to be returned by plane to Moscow, on 25 February 1993, a claim was filed against the Pompidou Centre, the Pushkin Museum and the State Hermitage Museum. Irina Shchukina aimed to obtain a sequestration order in respect of the 21 works by Matisse. She stated that the nationalisation order by Lenin of 29 October 1918, by which her father lost his art collection without any financial compensation, constituted spoliation, which was contrary to the French public order and could not therefore take effect in France. Irina Shchukina stated that she should be considered as the owner of the collection, as the only living heiress. She asked in her claim the Pompidou Centre to become a depository of the works until the ownership claim would be settled. 3 See supra, Ch. 7.2, n. 71. 4 Just before the suit was brought before the court, Irina Shchukina wrote a letter to the then President Boris Jeltsin, in which she agreed that her father’s collection should stay in Russia. However, she insisted that Russia would repeal the ‘criminal’ nationalisation decree as a precondition for the Shchukin family handing over the collection. She did not receive any reply from Jeltsin. See: Tatyana Andriasova, ‘Shchukin’s unique art collection returns to Russia’, The Moscow News, 11 October 2004, to be found at: http://www.gif.ru/eng/news/art-collection-returns. [Last visited at 18 March 2011.] See also: Leila Anglade, ‘Anti-Seizure Statutes in Art Law: the influence of “La Danse” on French Law’, in: Oonagh Breen, James Casey and Anthony Kerr (eds.), Liber Memorialis Professor James C. Brady, Dublin 2001, pp. 3-16, p. 5. 5 In 1954, the Soviet authorities allowed paintings of Picasso forming part of the Shchukin collection to be displayed at the House of French Thought in Paris. Ekaterina Shchukina, the eldest daughter of Sergei Shchukin (and elderly sister of Irina) filed a suit to have it impounded. The exhibition was immediately closed and the paintings taken to the Russian Embassy in Paris. Her claim was rejected by the French Court by verdict of 12 July 1954, as the nationalisation in the Russian Federation could not be considered as contrary to the French public order or in violation of French law, and the collection returned to Moscow. So, now another attempt was made. See: http://www.morozov-shchukin.com/html/dossier_presse_ang.html. See also: ibid. (Anglade), at p. 5. 6 Henri Matisse (31 December 1869-3 November 1954) was a French artist. When he painted The Dance for Shchukin, he was called a Fauve, which means ‘wild beast’. Fauvism was characterised by the use of strong colours, rough brush strokes and simplified and often distorted shapes. The Dutch painter Kees van Dongen belonged to this group as well. See: Albert Kostenevich, From Matisse to Malevich, Pioneers from the modern art from the Hermitage, Hermitage Amsterdam, p. 284, and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fauvism. [Last visited 18 March 2011.] 7 See also supra, Ch.7.2. 294 On 5 May 1993, Ivan Konowaloff, grandson of Ivan Morozov8 intervened in the court case, as four paintings of that collector had been on display at the Pompidou Centre as well. The content of his claim was identical to the claim of Irina Shchukina, and the French court heard both claims in a single hearing. On 12 May 1993, at the hearing of the suit, Irina Shchukina declared orally that, by loyalty to the memory and the will of her father, she did not want to paralyse the free circulation and the exhibition of the works belonging to the Shchukin collection.9 However, she did not want to waive her ownership claim and tried to prevent by this court action to let the paintings return to Russia. The Russian Federation claimed immunity from jurisdiction, as well as immunity from measures of constraint and argued that the court should declare the claims of Irina Shchukina inadmissible. The sequestration order would be a breach of immunity from seizure enjoyed not only by the State, but also by the two Russian museums, which are to be considered as State organs and which lent the cultural objects in the context of their public cultural service, pursuant to the authorisation given by the Russian Ministry of Culture. Exhibitions and cultural exchanges play an important role in programs of international cultural cooperation and do not have any commercial purposes or objectives. The exhibition should therefore be seen as a State activity under public law, according to the defendants. The Public Prosecutor, whose oral observations were also heard, claimed that the court should rule that, since the contested nationalisation decree constituted a governmental act, the court had no jurisdiction to give a decision pursuant to the rules of public international law. On 16 June 1993, the Tribunal de Grande Instance declared the claims of Irina Shchukina and Ivan Konowalov inadmissible.10 The French court ruled against the claimants on the basis of sovereign immunity of the Russian Federation and its property, on the ground that the Russian museums were public institutions, and that immunity had not been waived. Furthermore, the court ordered that the title of the claimant’s deceased father had been revoked by a Russian 8 See: http://www.morozov-shchukin.com/html/dossier_presse_ang.html.