How can effective reparations programmes be conducted? What role should the international community play? This publication, by the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), offers a practical guide for reparations programmes. It is important to clarify legal obligations and the moral reasons for reparations, to address the political concerns and to be aware of cultural issues. International actors should rethink their reluctance to provide financial support to reparations efforts.
In the past, international law considered that wrongs committed by a state against its own nationals were essentially a domestic matter. Since the emergence of the concept of human rights, there is recognition that a consistent pattern of violations warrants international involvement. This has solidified the legal basis of a right to a remedy and reparation for victims of human rights violations. Reparations can be subdivided into five categories: restitution, compensation, rehabilitation, satisfaction and guarantees of non-repetition. Reparations programmes are meant to redress gross and systematic human rights violations, not sporadic or exceptional ones.
It is important to pay attention to some general characteristics of the contexts in which reparations typically take place. Weak institutional capacity, fractured social relations, very low levels of trust and a scarcity of financial resources frequently characterise such contexts. Recent reparations programmes have generally stemmed from truth commissions established after emergence from authoritarianism or conflict.
All reparations programmes aim to ensure that every victim receives benefits. This ‘completeness’ can be hampered by a lack of information about the victims, limited victim participation, poor publicity, limited accessibility and excessively high evidentiary thresholds. Further challenges faced by reparations programmes include the following:
- Reparations programmes must decide on a definition of victims and which violations are eligible for reparations.
- Setting the level of monetary compensation, and deciding how it is distributed are often the most challenging aspects of reparations programmes.
- Low socio-economic development and a large universe of potential beneficiaries constrain a government’s ability to implement a reparations plan. Establishing a reparations programme requires the mobilisation of significant public resources, which involves a political struggle.
- Linking reparations programmes to other justice measures and to civil litigation, and making them gender sensitive are also important challenges.
- The violations that reparations benefits are meant to redress are frequently of the sort that is, strictly speaking, irreparable.
- There is much less familiarity among NGOs with reparations than with other redress mechanisms, especially criminal justice.
International actors should consider providing financial support to reparations efforts, particularly in those cases in which they themselves played an important role in the conflict. They could provide technical assistance in the design and implementation of reparations programmes and support local groups involved in reparations discussions. Further actions could be to:
- Pressure multilateral institutions into fostering conditions under which post-conflict economies can afford to pay due attention to the victims of conflict
- Promote linkages between the reparations programme and a comprehensive transitional justice policy
- Make international support for reintegration plans for ex-combatants conditional on comparable local commitment to reparations for victims.
