The International Claims Commission of the United States: August 28, 1950- June 30, 1953

Abstract

Expropriation of property belonging to aliens in foreign countries was unusual prior to World War I. Occasional cases could be found, but such expropriation was always restricted to one or a few owners of property who, for various reasons, came into conflict with a foreign government. Wholesale expropriation of foreign-owned property began on a moderate scale in Mexico in 1915, and was later expanded in that country. Expropriation of all kinds of property, including foreign property, was introduced by Soviet Russia after the 1917 revolution. After World War I some Eastern European countries, such as Poland, Rumania, Czechoslovakia, and Yugoslavia, began to expropriate the large agrarian estates of the former German, Austrian, and Hungarian nobility and other rich landowners. These expropriations were, by the terms of the agrarian reform laws, based upon compensation to be paid by the respective states.