Cultural objects have a protected status on account of their intangible value, as symbols of an identity. This has been so since the early days of international law, and today there is an extensive legal framework that ensures this protection. Yet, when it comes to claims by former owners to items such as Nazi-looted art, colonial booty, or more recently looted antiquities, the situation is less straightforward. On the one hand, such claims are often not supported by positive law at all. On t...

On October 1st 1934 Willem P.J. Pompe (1893-1968), Professor of Criminal Law at Utrecht University between 1928 and 1963, founded the 'Criminological Institute' (Criminologisch Instituut) within the Faculty of Law of Utrecht University. Pompe initiated a rather influential academic movement, based on multidisciplinary cooperation between jurists, criminologists and psychiatrists. This academic movement is commonly referred to as 'the Utrecht School', which had its heyday in the 1950s.

In 197...