Starting in January, Britain's strict law against museums deaccessioning items in their collections is going to become a little less absolute.

Until now, it was against the law for any British national museum to let go of any object in its collection, no matter what the reason. But now, new legislation will allow the institutions to return to their rightful owners items looted by Nazis.

The Holocaust (Return of Cultural Objects) Act creates an exception for objects stolen between 1933 and 1945. The first object slated for return is the Benevento Missal, a 12th-century liturgical book in the collection of the British Library. It went missing from a cathedral in southern Italy after the Allies bombed the city in 1943, ended up in Naples, and was sold to a British intelligence officer, who later auctioned it in London. Britain's Spoliation Advisory Panel, set up in 2000, found that the Italian claim to the book was good and recommended it be returned. The decision led to the new legislation.

Although the new law applies only to Nazi-era looting, it could influence discussion of high-profile cases such as the Elgin Marbles, which Greece has long been trying to retrieve from the British Museum.

Read more at the Telegraph.