3. On the footing that 4 drawings which were looted from a Dr Feldmann in 1939 and which were subsequently acquired by the Defendants form part of the collections of the British Museum, whether, in the event that (i) the Defendants should consider themselves, by reason of the fact of the drawings having been looted, under a moral obligation to return the drawings to the heirs of a Dr. Feldmann and (ii) the Attorney General should approve such return, the Re: Snowden principle would be capable of being applied so as to permit the Defendants (if the Attorney General approved) properly to return the drawings to the heirs of Dr. Feldmann.” 8. I have been addressed on those questions by counsel for the Attorney-General and for the Trustees. In addition I gave leave to CLAE to intervene so that counsel on its behalf might address me. I accepted a short witness statement made on behalf of CLAE by its solicitor. The Attorney-General, the Trustees and CLAE all accept that I must approach the issues on the assumption, which CLAE does not admit, that the heirs of Dr Feldmann do not have a claim, whether at law or in equity, against the Trustees for restitution of the drawings or any of them. It must follow that in the terms of s.3(4) I must treat each drawing as “...vested in the Trustees as part of the collections of the Museum..” The Background 9. The issues for my determination are, ultimately, bare issues of law but they arise against a background to which the Trustees and CLAE attach the greatest importance. It is right that I should draw attention to it. 10. On 5th January 1943 Her Majesty’s Government joined with sixteen others to make the Inter-Allied Declaration against Acts of Dispossession committed in Territories under Enemy Occupation or Control (Cmd.6412). The declaration contained a formal warning “to all concerned” of the declarers’ intention “to do their utmost to defeat the methods of dispossession”. They reserved “all their rights to declare invalid any transfers of or dealings with property, rights and interests of any description whatsoever.” As pointed out in note 6 it had been decided “as a first step” to establish a committee of experts “to consider the scope and sufficiency of the existing legislation...for the purpose of invalidating transfers or dealings...in all proper cases.” 11. On 7th May 1944 Her Majesty’s government formed “the British Committee on the Preservation and Restitution of Works of Art, Archives and Other Material in Enemy Hands”, otherwise known as the Macmillan Committee. It was dissolved in 1946 because the chairman, Lord Macmillan, considered that it could do little until an International Restitution Commission was established. 12. In July 1944 the Bretton-Woods Agreement, in Art VI, recommended all governments represented at the United Nations Monetary and Financial Conference held from 1st to 22nd July 1944 to call upon the governments of all neutral countries to take immediate measures to prevent disposition of looted property and to prevent its fraudulent concealment. 13. It is evident from the correspondence and other documents produced by Mr Neil Macgregor, the Director of the British Museum, that the Director and Trustees in the 1940s were concerned for the plight of monuments in war zones and works of art in enemy occupied Europe and recognised that the scale of destruction and looting of historic monuments and private and national collections fell into a category which by