Reparations

Defining the Goals of Reparations

The quest for protecting individuals from mass atrocities is as old as the UN Charter and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The larger part of the Principles and Guidelines, with strong domestic law implications, sets out the status and the rights of victims, and corresponds to the title of the document as it refers to the right of victims to a remedy and reparation.

“This preliminary survey identifies the theoretical and empirical studies on torture survivors’ perceptions of the processes of obtaining reparation. The survey goes further, however, by looking at the difficulties of obtaining reparation, the meanings of specific forms of reparation expressed by survivors, and the different levels of expectations held by disparate individuals and socio-political groups. Too many questions about torture survivors’ perceptions remain unanswered, and this survey is a first step towards understanding their attitudes and motivations. Without their contributions, we are in danger of encouraging people whose lives have been shattered to exercise rights about which they are unclear via legal processes in which they are not involved and probably do not understand. Worse still, these actions could produce outcomes which neither satisfy them nor match their expectations.”

At this juncture, the state responsibility to respect and ensure the human rights of their citizens is a powerful political tool with huge potential. The responsibility of States for wrongful acts includes the responsibility of cessation and non-repetition, reparation, and irrelevance of internal law. The responsibility of States for wrongful acts includes the responsibility of cessation and non-repetition, reparation, and irrelevance of internal law. It also recalls the responsibilities of States to end impunity and to prosecute those responsible.

Reparation shall render justice by removing or redressing the consequences of the wrongful acts and by preventing and deterring violations. Reparations shall be proportionate to the gravity of the violations and the resulting damage and shall include restitution, compensation, rehabilitation, satisfaction and guarantees of non-repetition.

In the context of historical oppression or mass violations, reparations are aimed at restoring relationships on the basis of the equal dignity of all involved. They are, in some way, oriented toward the future. It is impossible, however, to restore or establish relationships based on mutual respect without acknowledging past abuses and their consequences in the present.

In addition, setting the stage for more equal relationships can go someway toward providing guarantees of non-repetition. Reparations should provide the conditions needed for future relationships based on the mutual recognition of dignity, as well as conditions that guarantee not only that the same kind of oppression will not happen again but also that the mindsets and ideology that allowed it to occur are eradicated.

A number of attempts have been made to produce guidelines or principles on the right to reparation; probably the most well known and comprehensive are those produced by Professor Theo van Boven; said Ms.Carla Ferstman, director of REDRESS

The van Boven principles

In 1989, Professor van Boven was entrusted by the United Nations with a study of the right to restitution, compensation, and rehabilitation for victims of gross violations of human rights and fundamental freedoms. This ultimately resulted in Draft Basic Principles and Guidelines (1997), in which he concluded that the only appropriate response to such victims is one of reparation.

According to the basic principles and guidelines, the victim’s right to a remedy encompasses (a) access to justice; (b) reparation for the harm suffered; and (c) access to factual information concerning the violations (Bassiouni, 1999). Reparation, it is stated, should be adequate, effective, prompt, proportional to the gravity of the violation and the harm suffered, and should include various forms. Professor van Boven’s study outlines four main forms of reparation

Restitution – designed to re-establish the situation which would have existed had the wrongful act not occurred. This may include restoration of liberty, family life, citizenship, return to one’s place of residence, and restoration of employment or property.

Compensation – should be provided for any economically assessable damage which results from the act (physical or mental harm, pain, suffering, lost opportunities, loss of earnings, medical and other expenses of rehabilitation, legal fees, etc.).

Rehabilitation – to include medical, psychological and other care and services, as well as measures to restore dignity and reputation.

Satisfaction and guarantees of non-repetition- including verification of facts and full public disclosure of the truth; a declaratory judgment (as to the illegality of the act); apology; judicial or administrative sanctions against the perpetrator(s); commemorations; prevention of recurrence (through legal and administrative measures including prosecution).

The UN Principles on the Right to a Remedy and Reparation specifically clarify the scope of obligations in human rights terms. States are required to respect, ensure respect for, and implement international human rights law and international humanitarian law. The means to meet these obligations are also spelled out. They include

• the duty to prevent violations;
• the duty to investigate violations effectively, promptly, thoroughly and impartially and, where appropriate, take action against those allegedly responsible;
• the duty to provide the victims with equal and effective access to justice, irrespective of who may ultimately be the bearer of responsibility for the violation; and
• the duty to provide effective remedies to victims, including reparation.

Author: anonym (A)

Germany: Repudiation of the Versailles Treaty and Reparations

Speech of Adolf Hitler on the issue:

“All the problems which are causing such unrest today lie in the deficiencies of the Treaty of Peace which did not succeed in solving in a clear and reasonable way the questions of the most decisive importance for the future. Neither national nor economic-to say nothing of legal-problems and demands of the nations were settled by this treaty in such a way as to stand the criticism of reason in the future. It is therefore natural that the idea of revision is not only one of the constant accompaniments of the effects of this treaty, but that it was actually foreseen as necessary by the authors of the Treaty and therefore given a legal foundation in the Treaty itself….

“It is not wise to deprive a people of the economic resources necessary for its existence without taking into consideration the fact that the population dependent on them are bound to the soil and will have to be fed. The idea that the economic extermination of a nation of sixty-five millions would be of service to other nations is absurd. Any people inclined to follow such a line of thought would, under the law of cause and effect, soon experience that the doom which they were preparing for another nation would swiftly overtake them. The very idea of reparations and the way in which they were enforced will become a classic example in the history of the nations of how seriously international welfare can be damaged by hasty and unconsidered action.

“As a matter of fact, the policy of reparations could only be financed by German exports. To the same extent as Germany, for the sake of reparations, was regarded in the light of an international exporting concern, the export of the creditor nations was bound to suffer. The economic benefit accruing from the reparation payments could therefore never make good the damage which the system of reparations inflicted upon the individual economic systems.

“The attempt to prevent such a development by compensating for a limitation of German exports by the grant of credits, in order to render payments possible, was no less short-sighted and mistaken in the end. For the conversion of political debts into private obligations led to an interest service which was bound to have the same results. The worst feature, however, was that the development of internal economic life was artificially hindered and ruined. The struggle to gain the world markets by constant underselling led to excessive rationalization measures in the economic field.

“The millions of German unemployed are the final result of this development. If it was desired, however, to restrict reparation obligations to deliveries in kind, this must naturally cause equally serious damage to the internal production of the nations receiving them. For deliveries in kind to the amount involved are unthinkable without most seriously endangering the production of the individual nations.

“The Treaty of Versailles is to blame for having inaugurated a period in which financial calculations appear to destroy economic reason.

“Germany has faithfully fulfilled the obligations imposed upon her, in spite of their intrinsic lack of reason and the obviously suicidal consequences of this fulfillment.

“The international economic crisis is the indisputable proof of the correctness of this statement.”

(Speech to the Reichstag on 17 May 1933)

(From Norman H. Baynes, ed. The Speeches of Adolf Hitler, April 1922-August 1939. Vol. 2. New York, 1969)

See also

Dollar Diplomacy; Economic Policy and Theory; Foreign Aid; International Monetary Fund and World Bank; Intervention and Nonintervention; Open Door Policy; Reparations; Wilsonian Missionary Diplomacy

Further Reading

• Aggarwal, Vinod K. Debt Game: Strategic Interaction in International Debt Rescheduling. New York, 1996.
• Biersteker, Thomas J., ed. Dealing with Debt: International Financial Negotiations and Adjustment Bargaining. Boulder, Colo., 1993.
• Bergmann, Carl. The History of Reparations. Boston and New York, 1927.
• Brennglass, Alan C. The Overseas Private Investment Corporation: A Study in Political Risk. New York, 1983.
• Carew, Anthony. Labour Under the Marshall Plan: The Politics of Productivity and the Marketing of Management Science. Detroit, Mich., 1987.
• Dobson, Alan P. U.S. Wartime Aid to Britain, 1940-1946. London and Dover, N.H., 1986.
• Dougherty, James J. The Politics of Wartime Aid: American Economic Assistance to France and French Northwest Africa, 1940-1946. West-port, Conn., 1978.
• Eckes, Alfred E. A Search for Solvency: Bretton Woods and the International Monetary System, 1941-1947. Austin, Tex., 1975.
• Eichengreen, Barry, and Peter H. Lindert, eds. The International Debt Crisis in Historical Perspective. Cambridge, Mass., 1989.
• Feis, Herbert. The Diplomacy of the Dollar: First Era, 1919-1932. Baltimore, 1950.
• Feis, Herbert. Foreign Aid and Foreign Policy. New York, 1964.
• Fossedal, Gregory A. Our Finest Hour: Will Clayton, the Marshall Plan and the Triumph of Democracy. Stanford, Calif., 1993.
• George, Susan. The Debt Boomerang: How Third World Debt Harms Us All. Boulder, Colo., 1992.
• Healy, David. Drive to Hegemony: The United States in the Caribbean, 1898-1917. Madison, Wis., 1963.
• Herring, George C. Aid to Russia, 1941-1946: Strategy, Diplomacy, the Origins of the Cold War. New York, 1973.
• Hogan, Michael. The Marshall Plan: America, Britain, and the Reconstruction of Western Europe, 1947-1952. New York, 1987.
• James, Harold. The German Slump: Politics and Economics, 1924-1936. Oxford and New York, 1986.
• Johannsson, Haraldur. From Lend-Lease to Marshall Plan Aid: The Policy Implications of U.S. Assistance, 1941-1951. Reykjavik, 1997.
• Jones, Kenneth P. “Discord and Collaboration: Choosing an Agent General for Reparations.” Diplomatic History 1 (1977): 118-139.
• Kent, Bruce. The Spoils of War: The Politics, Economics, and Diplomacy of Reparations, 1918-1932. Oxford and New York, 1989.
• Keynes, J. M. The Economic Consequences of the Peace. New York, 1920.
• Leffler, Melvyn P. “The Origins of Republican War Debt Policy.” Journal of American History 59 (1972): 585-601.
• Martel, Leon. Lend-Lease, Loans, and the Coming of the Cold War. Boulder, Colo., 1979.
• Miller, Morris. Coping Is Not Enough! The International Debt Crisis and the Roles of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. Homewood, Ill., 1986.
• Massad, Carlos, ed. The Debt Problem: Acute and Chronic Aspects. New York, 1985.
• Moulton, Harold G., and Leo Pasvolsky. War Debts and World Prosperity. Washington, D.C., 1932.
• Munro, Dana G. Intervention and Dollar Diplomacy in the Caribbean, 1900-1921. Westport, Conn., 1964.
• Nelson, Joan M. Aid, Influence, and Foreign Policy. New York, 1968.
• O’Leary, Michael K. The Politics of American Foreign Aid. New York, 1967.
• Perkins, Dexter. The Monroe Doctrine, 1867-1907. Gloucester, Mass., 1937.
• Pisani, Sallie. The CIA and the Marshall Plan. Lawrence, Kans., 1991.
• Rhodes, Benjamin D. “Reassessing ‘Uncle Shylock’: The United States and the French War Debt, 1917-1929.” Journal of American History 55 (1969): 787-803.
• Rhodes, Benjamin D. “Herbert Hoover and the War Debts, 1919-33.” Prologue 6 (1974): 130-144.
• Schuker, Stephen A. American “Reparations” to Germany, 1919-33: Implications for the Third World Debt Crisis. Princeton, N.J., 1988.
• Silverman, Dan P. Reconstructing Europe after the Great War. Cambridge, Mass., 1982.
• Siracusa, Joseph M. Safe for Democracy: A History of America, 1914-1945. Claremont, Calif., 1993.
• Siracusa, Joseph M., ed. The American Diplomatic Revolution: A Documentary History of the Cold War, 1941-1947. New York, 1976.
• Trachtenberg, Marc. Reparation in World Politics: France and European Economic Diplomacy, 1916-1923. New York, 1980.
• Van Tuyll, Hubert P. Feeding the Bear: American Aid to the Soviet Union, 1941-1945. New York, 1989.
• Wertman, Patricia A. Lend-Lease: An Historical Overview and Repayment Issues. Washington, D.C., 1985. Williams, Benjamin H. Economic Foreign Policy of the United States. New York, 1929.
• Wood, Robert E. From Marshall Plan to Debt Crisis: Foreign Aid and Development Choices in the World Economy. Berkeley, Calif., 1986.
• Yielding, Thomas D. United States Lend-Lease Policy in Latin America. Denton, Tex., 1983.