Konrad Bühler/Gregor Schusterschitz/Michael Wimmer

In the years preceding the accession of the Czech Republic to the European Union on 1 May 2004, the discussion of the so-called Beneš-Decrees and the expulsion of the Sudeten Germans from the former Czechoslovakia intensified not only in the Czech Republic, Germany and Austria, but also on the European level. This article, which is based on the results of research for a legal opinion issued in June 2002, gives a brief overview of the problematic questions of the Beneš Decrees and the Czech restitution laws, including the practice of their application by the Czech courts and administrative authorities. It particularly scrutinizes the connected legal questions from a human rights and European community law perspective and focuses on aspects that so far have not or just superficially been dealt with in relevant literature and legal opinions. For a better understanding of the legal and historical context, a preliminary chapter outlines the general international law aspects of the expulsion and expropriation of the Sudeten German people.

Mag. Dr. Konrad G. Bühler is Legal Adviser at the Permanent Mission of Austria to the United Nations in New York (since 2004). From 1999 until 2004 he served as legal expert in the Office of the Legal Adviser and the Office of the Special Envoy for Restitution Issues in the Austrian Ministry for Foreign Affairs in Vienna. Before joining the Foreign Ministry, Dr. Bühler worked as lecturer on public international law and Assistant to Professor Karl Zemanek at the Institute of International Law and International Relations at the University of Vienna (1994 until 1998).