International Court of Justice — Jurisdiction — Limitations ratione temporis — European Convention for the Peaceful Settlement of Disputes — Exclusion of disputes relating to facts or situations prior to entry into force of the Convention — Source or real cause of dispute — Beneš Decrees adopted by Czechoslovakia at the end of Second World War — Confiscation of property of Germans irrespective of nationality — Litigation in Germany in 1990s regarding painting confiscated under Decrees — Convention on the Settlement of Matters Arising out of the War and the Occupation, 1952 — German courts refusing remedy to original owner on basis that Settlement Convention applicable — Whether real cause of dispute the Decrees and the Settlement Convention or the decisions of the German courts

War and armed conflict — Second World War — Germany capitulating on 8 May 1945 — Occupation — Four Allied Powers assuming supreme authority in Germany — Allied Declaration of 5 June 1945 — Convention on Settlement of Matters Arising out of the War and the Occupation, 1952 — Settlement Convention amended by Schedule IV to Protocol on the Termination of the Occupation Regime in Federal Republic of Germany, 1954 — Particular status of Germany under international law after Second World War — Germany lacking full authority of sovereign State over its internal and external affairs — Treaty on Final Settlement, 1990 — Preservation of Chapter 6, Article 3(1) and (3) of Settlement Convention with respect to Germany — Effects on ownership of confiscated property