The aftermath of war is always messy and complicated. When should objects or resources that were unjustly taken in wartime be returned to the victims of misappropriation, or their heirs? This article advances two arguments that are intended to buttress claims for the restitution of property in general, and particularly claims advanced by the heirs of the original victims of misappropriation.

Our environmental wrongdoings result in a moral debt that requires restitution. One component of restitution is reparative and another is remediative. The remediative component requires that we remediate our characters in ways that alter or eliminate the character traits that tend to lead, in their expression, to environmental wrongdoing. Restitutive restoration is a way of engaging in ecological restoration that helps to meet the remediative requirement that accompanies environmental wrongdoing. This account of restoration provides a new motivation and (...) justification for engaging in restorative practices in addition to the standard pragmatist justification and motivations. (shrink)

Using forgiveness theory, we investigated the effects of organizational apology and restitution on eliciting forgiveness of a transgressing organization after transactional psychological contract breach. Forgiveness theory proposes that victims are more likely to forgive offenders when victims’ positive offender-oriented emotions replace negative ones. Three pre-post laboratory experiments, using vignettes about a broken promise of financial aid, found that while apology-alone and restitution-alone each increased likelihood of forgiving, restitution-alone was the more effective of the two responses. When combined (...) with an apology, restitution boosted the effect of apology-alone. However, restitution was unnecessary if positive emotions replaced negative ones; third-party blame accomplished this negative-to-positive emotion replacement. Consistent with forgiveness theory, offender-oriented negative-to-positive emotion replacement partially mediated all effects, and negative emotion reductions were strongly correlated with positive emotion gains. We discuss implications for the repair of damaged norms and relationships within an organizational community. These include reparative effects of apology and restitution, dual-process conceptions of violation and repair, repair after psychological contract breach, and emotion replacement models of forgiveness. (shrink)

This article presents the problem of lack of restitution in Poland in the political, social and economic context. The author presents the theory of institutional lock-in, referring to the hitherto course of the political, social and economic transformation processes in Poland. She is focusing on the research problem in form of an institutional lock-in on the route to general restitution process. The author examines the path shaping and path dependence to understand the current negative attitude toward restitution (...) presented by the government and society. The author also indicates the costs caused by lack of restitution. Through analysis of past attempts of restitution regulations the author indicates the most important flashpoints. A hypothesis constructed by the author focuses on the negative effects of institutional lock-in, lack of restitution increases transaction costs influencing the Polish economy. The study is based on the legal documents and the results of public opinion polls. (shrink)

Analyses the social imaginary of undoing, repair and return underpinning the international norm of restitution-makingApproaches restitution not just as a legal norm of property return, but as a social imaginary and a cultural-psychoanalytic 'scene' of undoing, repair and returnBrings together philosophic-political, socio-legal and cultural-psychoanalytic approaches to the study of restitutionOutlines a heterogeneous and multifaceted idea of restitution emergent in modernity, and looks at the peripheries of the modern restitutive tradition in the search for alternatives and counter-traditionsThis book (...) takes a unique approach grounded in political and cultural discourse to develop a political theory of restitution. Challenging assumptions about restitution in the Western legal and political tradition, where it has become nearly synonymous with reacquisition and where legal studies focus on material objects and claims to their ownership, Zolkos argues that the development of restitutive norms has been auxiliary to the emergence of modern state sovereignty, and excavates the restitutive tradition's mythical-religious substrate. Bringing together texts from within and outwith the Western canon of political theory and philosophy, including the writings of Grotius, Durkheim, Freud, and Klein, as well as Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, the book undertakes a dual task: reading literary texts as a political theorising of restitution, and reading political or sociological texts as literary narratives with distinctive 'restitutive tropes' of repair, undoing and return. (shrink)

Using forgiveness theory, we investigated the effects of organizational apology and restitution on eliciting forgiveness of a transgressing organization after transactional psychological contract breach. Forgiveness theory proposes that victims are more likely to forgive offenders when victims’ positive offender-oriented emotions replace negative ones. Three pre-post laboratory experiments, using vignettes about a broken promise of financial aid, found that while apology-alone and restitution-alone each increased likelihood of forgiving, restitution-alone was the more effective of the two responses. When combined (...) with an apology, restitution boosted the effect of apology-alone. However, restitution was unnecessary if positive emotions replaced negative ones; third-party blame accomplished this negative-to-positive emotion replacement. Consistent with forgiveness theory, offender-oriented negative-to-positive emotion replacement partially mediated all effects, and negative emotion reductions were strongly correlated with positive emotion gains. We discuss implications for the repair of damaged norms and relationships within an organizational community. These include reparative effects of apology and restitution, dual-process conceptions of violation and repair, repair after psychological contract breach, and emotion replacement models of forgiveness. (shrink)

While the roots of the common law of restitution reach back hundreds of years, the idea that it constitutes a domain of private law was first clearly articulated in the American Law Institute’s Restatement of Restitution in 1932. The U.S. was at the forefront of development in the law of restitution but interest has declined. Recently John Langbein offered an explanation, first in terms of law and economics and then through legal realism. Realism, by Langbein’s estimation, has (...) exacted “a terrible toll” on doctrinal study in the postwar period. One of the principal aims of The Law and Ethics of Restitution, Hanoch Dagan writes, is to disprove this claim. Realism, properly understood, is supportive of doctrine and, he argues, in this context, provides a better account of the law than the prevailing view. This book is a challenging and important work not only in the law of restitution but also in legal theory. My main interest in this Critical Notice is to ask whether the kind of justification for liability in restitution Dagan offers is compelling. While part of what separates Dagan from Langbein is their understanding of legal realism, I take Dagan to be right on this point, and ask whether he’s made the case in favour of a realist account of restitution. I do that by considering two examples of the doctrinal analyses that form the bulk of the book: first by outlining a pair of issues on which Dagan takes a position by setting up the question he aims to ask, and then by considering his rejection of the view to which>The Law and Ethics of Restitutionoffers an alternative. (shrink)

The paper deals with the problem of digital restitution of art to post-colonial and postdependency countries. A new model of digital restitution composed of two elements: creation of a digital copy with a NFT attached and creation of new property right in a physical and digital object has been proposed. A system of balances between the rights and duties based on the prior user concept has been developed.

The process of restitution of the former religious property began in the first years of Ukraine's independence. The leadership of the state assumed the obligation to return to the religious organizations expropriated property by the former Soviet authorities. However, during the twenty-two years of existence of independent Ukraine, the relevant competent state bodies have not been developed, and accordingly, the integrated mechanism for returning the former religious property to religious organizations has been developed.

The ethics of restitution vs. privatization examined against the transition from Communism and classical theories of property rights.

In recent years restitution scholars have expended considerable energy in attempting to reveal the logical structure of the law of proprietary remedies. That project advances on the assumption that the strange rhetoric that pervades this area of law can be stripped away to reveal restitutionary principles. However, the doctrines in question have proved resistant to such endeavors. An appreciation of why this is so requires recognition of the very real anxiety generated by the judicial readjustment of property rights that (...) takes place in this area of law. The use of metaphors, fictions and evidential presumptions that characterizes the law tracing, subrogation and the provision of proprietary relief for wrongs serves to assuage this anxiety by manufacturing the appearance that these remedies are perfectly conventional instances of the enforcement of pre-existing property or consensual transfers of property. However, these property rites have a logic of their own - a logic that influences and constrains the development of the law of proprietary remedies and makes it impossible to neatly reduce this field to a set of restitutionary principles. This is illustrated by the work of Professor Peter Birks, which represents the most comprehensive attempt to cut away the abstruse rhetoric found in this area and reveal the restitutionary substructure of the law of proprietary remedies and makes it impossible to neatly reduce this field to a set of restitutionary principles. This is illustrated by the work of Professor Peter Birks, which represents the most comprehensive attempt to cut away the substructure of the law of proprietary remedies. In Birks' work this process has merely resulted in old metaphors being replaced with new ones. Ultimately, we must accept that if re are to rationalize this area we must be prepared to engage directly with the policy issues that arise in this context. (shrink)

In the past generation, restitution law has emerged as a global phenomenon. From its Oxbridge home, restitution migrated to the rest of the Commonwealth, and ongoing Europeanization projects have brought the common law of restitution into contact with the Romanist concept of unjust enrichment, further internationalizing this movement. In contrast, in the United States, scholarly interest in restitution, in terms of books, articles, treatises, symposia and courses on restitution, is meager. Similarly, while restitution, equity (...) and tracing cases receive considerable treatment at the highest levels of the English judiciary, US courts seem uninterested in these issues, rarely producing the theory-laden opinions that have become quite common in the House of Lords. The situation is particularly curious because restitution is generally thought to be the invention of late nineteenth-century American scholars. This article explains this divergence. I argue that the Commonwealth restitution discourse is largely a product of pre- or anti-realist legal thought which generates scepticism within the American academic-legal establishment. The article identifies the two dominant camps in American private law thought—left-leaning redistributionalists and the centre-right legal economists—and shows that neither has any use for the Commonwealth's discourse. I conclude by analysing the emerging drafts of the Restatement of Restitution and forecast the future of American restitution law. (shrink)

Following its determination of a finding of scientific misconduct the Office of Research Integrity (ORI) will seek redress for any injury sustained. Several remedies both administrative and statutory may be available depending on the strength of the evidentiary findings of the misconduct investigation. Pursuant to federal regulations administrative remedies are primarily remedial in nature and designed to protect the integrity of the affected research program, whereas statutory remedies including civil fines and criminal penalties are designed to deter and punish wrongdoers. (...) This commentary discusses the available administrative and statutory remedies in the context of a specific case, that of former University of Vermont nutrition researcher Eric Poehlman, and supplies a possible rationale for the legal result. (shrink)

Le rapport Sarr-Savoy sur la restitution du patrimoine africain a provoqué controverses et crispations. Quels peuvent être les critères de restitution des objets? Les modes d’acquisition, les usages dans le contexte culturel d’origine, les modalités de retour en Afrique? Il s’agit ici de faire un pas de côté par rapport au débat sur le devenir des musées détenteurs de collections coloniales, particulièrement euro centré. La restitution n’est pas seulement le déplacement physique d’un artefact d’un musée à un (...) autre, elle est un geste symbolique. Ainsi, dans les angles morts de la restitution formelle, cette Mineure recherche des formes alternatives de restitution de basse intensité, à partir desquels pourrait s’ouvrir de nouveaux horizons d’appropriation. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to provide a broad sketch of the advantages of the debt/atonement approach to punishment. Such an approach is appealing for it can benefit both the victim and the remorseful victimizer. Compared to other theories, it gives a fuller and more unified account of our intuitions about paying debts, doing penance, alleviating guilt, granting forgiveness, and offsetting privileges, pleasures and burdens. The theory also allows us to avoid justifying punishment on the basis of using some (...) people to deter others. And it does all of this while channeling in a positive and productive way the deeply felt vindictive need to "get even." Thus, contrary to the traditional wisdom that justice and revenge are diametrically opposed, providing the former may actually depend upon allowing the latter. (shrink)

Jeremy Waldron argues that claims to reparation for historic injustices can be superseded by the demands of justice in the present. For example, justified Maori claims to reparation resulting from the wrongful appropriation of their land by European settlers may be superseded by the claim to a just distribution of resources possessed by the world’s existing inhabitants. However, if we distinguish between reparative and restitutive claims, we see that while claims to restitution may be superseded by changes in circumstance, (...) this does not entail that claims to reparation are. In contrast, claims to reparation are robust to changes in circumstance. (shrink)

I. Introduction. The debt/atonement model of punishment seeks to reconcile the criminal with his direct victim, as well as the larger community, through restorative mechanisms of restitution and atonement.[i] As a result, it has certain advantages over better known rivals.[ii] Unlike retribution, reform and deterrence, the approach does some good, first and foremost, for the victim of the crime. But it can also benefit the victimizer and indirectly victimized members of the larger community. Competing theories usually profit but one (...) of the three. They also fail to do as well in removing the tension between justice and mercy. Yet even when mercy is not an option, retribution, reform and deterrence can dictate punishments that are intuitively excessive. But the problem isn’t just that of excess. At others times, it seems they will endorse inappropriately lenient responses to crime. I will argue that a properly construed debt/atonement approach, despite its stress on punishment taking the form of restitution, can handle three common objections that it is incapable of providing appropriate punishments. The first is that it cannot justify punishing murder for the dead cannot be compensated. Even if this turns out to be true, surprisingly, it bestows no relative advantage upon rival accounts for if the dead cannot be benefited, then they cannot be harmed, and thus punishing killers who did not harm those they killed will be difficult for any theory to justify. The second objection is that it cannot accommodate our practice of publishing failed attempts where there appears to be no harm when the target didn’t even know the attempt transpired. Ironically, it turns out that only the advocated approach can justify our practice of punishing failed attempts less severely than successes. The third objection is that the theory sometimes advocates making criminals suffer in order to satisfy the vindictive desires of their victims. I’ll argue that so harming criminals is a defensible way to extract the debt payment they owe their victims.. (shrink)

Text for both law students and legal practitioners. Features information on fiduciary relationships, breach of fiduciary duty, unconscientious dealing and undue influence, breach of confidence, remedies against primary wrongdoers and remedies against third parties. Includes table of contents, table of cases, table of statutes and index.

This article explores the extent to which it is or may be possible to have a claim both in contract and in restitution. Restitution will almost never be appropriate before a valid contract has been discharged but after it has been discharged a restitutionary claim may be available as well as a contractual one. A restitutionary claim cannot, however, be used to set aside the contractual allocation of risks. It is argued that while in the past English courts (...) may have been too willing to conclude that restitution would be inconsistent with the allocation of risks, the view of those striving to show the independence of restitution that there will always be a restitutionary claim unless the contract, construed strictly against the party resisting restitution, has excluded it, goes too far in the opposite direction. The terms of the contract and its nature are of vital importance to the existence and extent of any restitutionary claim Apart from the question of express or implied exclusion by a contractual remedial regime which is a complete code, the contract determines both whether contractual rights are "conditional" and defensible or "unconditional", and whether the acts of the person against whom restitution is sought constitute part performance of the contract which will either bar a claim or for which the plaintiff will have to give credit. (shrink)

The political and legal perspectives on and understanding of the process of land reform in South Africa differ from the church's vision and understanding on what land reform entails. Currently, land reform through the restitution of church land to indigenous people is still not solved to all party's satisfaction, although this issue is on the table since 1994. The research focuses on the actions by the Roman Catholic Church that argued that 'society ensures justice when it provides the conditions (...) that allow associations or individuals to obtain what is their due, according to their nature'. The church also suggests that land is an arable resource that gives people access to certain basic needs necessary for them to lead a dignified life. This article discusses and evaluates the outcomes of the restitution of Catholic Church land since 1994-2014. It also addresses the contribution by the Catholic Church to land restitution during the period of 1994 -2014 to advocate and encourage further participation in the land reform programme. In light of this reality, one can ask whether the Catholic Church can bring about positive influence to the present challenges facing the land reform programme. Positive examples of the trainings and workshops conducted by the church within different communities are showcased to note possible future structures for dealing with land restitution from the church's perspective. (shrink)

David Boonin has recently argued that although no existing theory of legal punishment provides adequate moral justification for the practice of punishing criminal wrongdoing, compulsory victim restitution (CVR) is a morally justified response to such wrongdoing. Here I argue that Boonin’s thesis is false because CVR is a form of punishment. I first support this claim with an argument that Boonin’s denial that CVR is a form of punishment requires a groundless distinction between a state’s response to a criminal (...) offense and its response to an offender’s failure to comply with the sanctions imposed for that offense. I then suggest that this argument points to a definition of punishment that not only meets Boonin’s own desiderata for a definition of punishment but also implies that CVR is a form of punishment. Finally, I argue that CVR is a form of punishment even under Boonin’s own proposed definition of punishment. -/- . (shrink)

It is often claimed that medical professionals are subject to conflicting duties in their role morality. Some hold that the overridden duty taints the professional and generates a patient claim to a form of moral compensation. This paper challenges such a ‘compensation view’ of conflict and argues that it misleadingly makes the role morality into a personal contract between professional and patient. Two competing views are therefore considered. The ‘unity view’ argues that there are no real conflicts between professional duties. (...) Hence, there can be no residual duties that are impossible to discharge and no special claim on the part of the patient. It is argued that this fails because the institutional nature of the role morality requires us to accept possibility of conflict. The paper articulates and defends a third view, where conflict triggers a professional duty of restitution. This duty is not a matter of making amends for a previous wrong, but rather a matter of rebuilding a trusting relationship that has been damaged due to blameless circumstances. (shrink)

Many indigenous communities were dispossessed of their land during the period of colonial rule. This long process resulted in forced demographic removals and perennial poverty. Nowadays these communities, especially Third World groups, seek redress of this situation through legal processes of land restitution. This process is met by resistance from landowners in these countries, the colonial powers of old, as well as from big corporations that benefited from the dispossession. The investigation undertaken in this article addresses the ethics of (...) land reform from a Christian ethical perspective. The policy of land restitution in South Africa is used as a case study, but the results of this research are also applicable to other parts of the world where land restitution is considered. The article first evaluates the biblical teachings of land and land reform and their implications for modern ethics. In the light of these issues, the article addresses the question of whether land ownership can be considered as a fundamental human right. The article also focuses on the legality of expropriation and dispossession of land for the purposes of restitution. Moreover, guidelines for fair and legal restitution within the context of Christian ethics and legal philosophical principles are proposed. (shrink)

Abstract. This essay theorizes madness as a chthonic emplacement to dishevel existentially insufficient and detached interpretations of disorder. Reflecting on Nietzsche’s emphasis on poetry over systematic thought, I take up Lorca and Baudelaire’s visceral language on death and the earthly to revisit chthonic myths as expressing an underworld uncontrollable sphere beyond systematicity. Written from the phenomenologically precarious position of my own mental illness, this essay develops a sincere rhetoric to approach the chthonic from within rather than at sterilized distance. This (...) positioning retains the indexicality of the intense and disorganized as a critical facet, in turn exploring the nuances of the experience without discursive reductions or romantic musings, from the ground down. (shrink)

On sait que pour Cuvier la totalite d'un organisme vivant peut etre reconnue par chaque fragment de chacune de ses parties, ce qui permet, a partir d'un seul element, de restituer un exemplaire d'une espece aujourd'hui disparue. Les etudes reunies dans ce volume ont une intention analogue: partir a chaque fois d'une question determinee et restituer dans son ensemble la secrete architecture d'une oeuvre philosophique (ici a l'interieur du domaine allemand, de Kant a Heidegger). Travail, si l'on veut, de paleontologie (...) philosophique, mais au terme duquel les differentes pensees abordees peuvent sembler se restituer les unes aux autres, comme si elles procedaient toutes d'un unique philosophe tentant, par differentes voies, de resoudre une unique question: celle, precisement, de l'Unique. C'est a nous, interprete ou lecteur, qu'incombe aujourd'hui la responsabilite de sa fragile survie. (shrink)

Libertarians typically object to having the state deal with law and order for several general reasons: it is inefficient; it is carried out at the expense of taxpayers; and it punishes so-called victimless crimes. Exactly what the observance of liberty implies with respect to the treatment of tortfeasors and criminals is more controversial among libertarians. A pure theory of libertarian restitution and retribution is mainly what is attempted here, without becoming involved in general moral anti-state arguments. However, the pure (...) theory alone will raise practical problems that require immediate response if the theory is to appear at all plausible. (shrink)