Redress for Victims of Terrorism: The Right to Reparations in the War on Terror

• In Event: 507 - Section on Human Rights Paper Session. Human Rights, Social Policy, and the State

Abstract

Four years after 9/11, the United Nations Global Counter-Terrorism Strategy (A/RES/60/288) was adopted, recognizing that the war on terror can only be won by protecting the rights of its victims. Almost a decade since its adoption, the application of a human rights framework to the protection of the rights of victims of terrorism has been largely neglected. A 2012 Report by UN Special Rapporteur Ben Emmerson sought to address this neglect, recommending that Member-States provide reparations to victims of terrorism regardless of the question of State responsibility. This paper explores what the application of the norms and laws on reparations under international law imply to the protection of the rights of victims of terrorism, and whether the concept of state responsibility can be overcome when viewing the rights of victims of terrorism as human rights. Analyzing the international norms surrounding victims’ rights vis-à-vis reparations and State responsibility, I argue that all States indeed have the obligation to protect the rights of victims as human rights, and provide avenues for redress. However, I also argue that the current construction of the concept of reparations makes state-level implementation tenuous at best. When applied to the war on terror – a situation where no consensus among states exists on the definition of terrorism, where the application of a human rights framework remains contentious, and where the perpetrators are unknown non-state actors without the capacity to provide redress – the issue of state responsibility vis-à-vis reparations to victims is not so easily overcome.

Author

• Erika Mae Lorenzana Del Villar, University of Connecticut