The Role of the United States Government in Recent Holocaust Claims Resolution

Abstract

This is, I think, an interesting story?one that is hard for outsiders to know. I will talk about the U.S. government's role in three of the Holocaust settlements: the 1995 so called agreement; the Swiss bank settlement, and the German foundation for payments to forced and slave laborers and other victims of the Nazi era. Let me start by pointing out that for two centuries the U.S. government has con cluded claims settlement agreements on behalf of its nationals. Under the customary international law of state responsibility and diplomatic protection, in certain circum stances a state has the right to and settle the claims of its nationals. A state may espouse, and take over, the claim of one of its nationals against another state if the claim was owned by one of its nationals at the time it arose and continuously thereafter until it is espoused, if the claim involves a breach of an international obligation attribut able to the foreign government, and if the national has first exhausted local remedies in the foreign nation. If these requirements are met, there is discretion to espouse a claim; a government may choose not to espouse a claim for foreign policy reasons. The discretionary authority of the executive branch of the U.S. government?the president and the secretary of state?to exercise the espousal power has consistently been upheld by U.S. courts. The Princz agreement between Germany and the United States of September 1995 followed this traditional framework. It was a lump-sum settlement with Germany that provided compensation to certain U.S. citizens who were victims of Nazi persecution (essentially concentration camp survivors) in return for waiver of all claims against Germany in that category. Byway of background, Hugo Princz, a Holocaust concentration camp survivor, for many years sought compensation from Germany. Mr. Princz sued the German govern ment in U.S. federal court, but the suit was dismissed in view of Germany's sovereign immunity. Then Mr. Princz sued German companies. At the same time, Mr. Princz's con gressional supporters pressed U.S. legislation to remove sovereign immunity from the German government for Holocaust suits, and in 1994 such a bill passed in the House of Representatives. This situation warranted serious attention by the two governments, and the German chancellor and U.S. president agreed in March 1995 thata claimssettle ment agreement covering Mr. Princz and comparable claimants should be concluded. The German government wan ted to have a settlement that finally resolved any future potential claims. We in the State Department did not, however, believe that it would be just to settle all claims that were comparable to Mr. Princz's without a thorough program to locate claimants who might qualify, since all claims in the categories covered by the settlement would be cut off. To allow time for the United States to