Under current international law, victims of armed conflict have a right to reparation from the responsible parties. Political obstacles may, however, prevent victims from bringing reparation claims before domestic courts. For example, if the victims assert reparation claims before the court of a responsible party, they may reasonably fear discrimination if they were targeted in the armed conflict on ethnic, racial or religious grounds. They may also face real and significant legal and procedural obstacles at the domestic level, in the form of jurisdictional uncertainties, immunities, statutes of limitations, lack of sufficient evidence, or the absence of class or group actions. Giving effect to the right to reparation may in such cases only be practicable in an ad hoc mechanism of some sort. In fact, various precedents for such reparation mechanisms exist. Although reparation mechanisms may take many different forms, most need to address such common issues as who is eligible for reparation; what type of harm will be addressed; and what type of remedies are to be made available. The present chapter examines the common and basic principles which can be extracted by the comparative analysis of past and ongoing fifteen mechanisms.

Chapter 1 provides an overview of different theories of justice and how they can inform the development of a civil dimension of international criminal law. This chapter also traces the evolution of different dichotomies of the legal duty to provide reparations and the right to reparation: from perspectives of state versus state, to state versus individual, to individual versus individual. It also outlines the development of a duty to repair for individual perpetrators alongside states’ duty to repair. This introductory chapter thus provides the theoretical foundation that supports the analysis in the following chapters and it sets out the main themes that are discussed throughout the book. This chapter also lays out and discusses some challenges and counterarguments to the inclusion of a reparative dimension to international criminal justice from a theoretical perspective. Finally, this chapter draws on the enlightening jurisprudence of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights.