The purpose of this book is to clarify issues of international importance relating to the varying interpretations of expropriation and confiscation arising during international disputes.

This book offers an in-depth analysis of the concept of the direct enforcement of foreign restraint and confiscation orders, a crucial step in the process of asset recovery, including existing legal approaches and related challenges. In order to provide a balanced and informed overview, 31 jurisdictions, representing different United Nations regional groups and legal systems (civil law / common law / mixed systems), were selected as the focus of the analysis. This approach provides a meaningful picture of the situation worldwide from which generally applicable guidance could be drawn. The study suggests a series of practical steps and good practices for consideration by (1) countries exploring the possibility of introducing a direct enforcement mechanism into their domestic legal frameworks and (2) countries that are already in a position to directly enforce foreign confi scation orders but that are considering options to streamline processes and maximize results obtainable via direct enforcement approaches. This new StAR Initiative knowledge product is addressed to a broad range of law enforcement, justice, and asset recovery practitioners, as well as bodies involved in legislative and regulatory processes. It will be a useful tool in their work.

was discussed by the Institut de Droit International at Siena 1 and recently, in 1954, it was the principal item of the meeting of the Netherlands Branch of the International Law Association 2. This study aims at contributing to the not too extensive literature on the subject. 11. BACKGROUND One cannot consider law and justice without considering at the same time the people whom they concern. And people again cannot be imagined without feelings, political and social views, and economic interests. The law could not exist without such a background. The history of various acts of confiscation in the twentieth century proves the enormous importance of the back ground underlying these problems. Russian confiscations are in the light of the Bolshevist doctrine only becoming intelligible of revolution; the M exicanization of the oil industry is in keeping with Mexican social development preceding it; the confiscations which took place in Germany under the Nazi regime must be understood as the outcome of a certain ideology; unfortunately confiscations due to operations in time of war are self-explana tory. A single school of thought governs each one alike: rights of individuals are considered of less and less importance. It was not by chance that the infringement of private property, notably in the great political upheavals, often went hand in hand with a dedining interest in the protection of the individual freedom. Where the state infringes the proprietary rights of individuals, it will even more readily do the same as regards personal freedom.