INTERNATIONAL LAW                 HUMAN RIGHTS LAW             HOLOCAUST REPARATIONS &     RESTITUTION

Ghalchi & Associates has also assisted, pro-bono, victims of the Nazi regime and their families and heirs in seeking restitution and reparations for confiscated and stolen real property, assets, and businesses.  In seeking to help Holocaust survivors, their heirs and families, and all victims of the Nazi regime and their collaborators, achieve some small measure of justice for the unspeakable horrors that befell them during WWII and events leading to it, our practice offers – pro bono – to represent clients, individually or on a class action basis, for claims arising from:

  • Forced and slave labor against German or non-German collaborative companies and private industries
  • Stolen/confiscated art treasures, artifacts (familial, religious, or cultural), jewelry, and other personal properties
  • Stolen/confiscated real properties and businesses
  • Stolen/confiscated bank funds/accounts
  • Social welfare/service benefits, pensions
  • Unpaid insurance policies

Mr. Ghalchi also associates with a network of international law and human rights academics and lawyers to resolve claims and bring some long-overdue measure of justice and closure.  

While litigation may serve on many occasions as the most effective path towards resolution of claims, it is not the only path.  We will also seek to work, when appropriate, with, for example, the Claims Conference and the World Jewish Restitution Organization (WJRO) and the N.Y. Department of Financial Services toward the restitution of Jewish-owned art and cultural property that was lost and plundered during the Holocaust.  (www.claimscon.org, www.dfs.ny.gov/consumer/holocaust/hcpoindex.htm).  Similarly, we will seek the aid of the Department of State, when suitable, in pursuing the payment of unpaid insurance policies from the Holocaust era to survivors of the Holocaust and to the heirs of Nazi victims to whom they are due. (http://www.state.gov/r/pa/prs/ps/2011/11/177217.htm).

Mr. Ghalchi’s international and E.U. law background also includes having worked overseas as legal advisor at the U.S. Department of State, American Embassy in Brussels, Belgium; and legal studies that include a concentration in international law and a certificate diploma from the Paris Institute on International and Comparative Law, in Paris, France. 

Human Rights, Public & Private International Law, and European Union Law

Ghalchi & Associates also offers its services in the area of human rights.  Human rights are, in principle, applicable to every person, regardless of their nationality. Some of these rights include rights to life and liberty; that no person should be enslaved, tortured, or deprived of the right to a trial before a “national tribunal;” that everyone should enjoy the right to an education and basic standards of living; and without discrimination.  Human rights can also come into play, for example, in family, immigration, police, business, employment, and women’s rights matters.

Ghalchi & Associates, similarly, offers its services in the area of public and private international law and European Union law.  Generally, public international law concerns relationships and disputes between States and intergovernmental organizations, or between them and persons or corporations. Private international law involves conflict of laws; it concerns relationships and disputes between private persons (or corporations) and which jurisdiction’s law should be applied.  Our practice, for example, offers representation in areas such as international environmental law, human rights, international trade and commerce, property expropriation, State responsibility, alien tort claims, and sovereign immunity.

Mr. Ghalchi is available for confidential and private consultations.