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Beyond retribution: Individual reparations for IHL violations as peace facilitators
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 10 May 2024
Abstract
Three decades after the United Nations Security Council invoked its Chapter VII powers to create the ad hoc criminal tribunals, there can be little doubt that the prosecution of individuals responsible for serious violations of international humanitarian law (IHL) contributes to restoring and maintaining peace. While there is little doubt that the reparatory function of justice is just as crucial as retribution, under international law today, reparations for IHL violations remain harrowingly insufficient or borderline non-existent. In scholarship and strategic litigation, various attempts have been made to distil an individual right to reparations from black-letter IHL. This article argues that such approaches are doomed to fail, as procedural aspects of international obligations rarely, if ever, emerge through the evolution of an existing customary international obligation, let alone via the crystallization of a new customary international norm. They are usually triggered by a political shift that makes States adopt novel regulations setting forth the jurisdictional ramifications of enforcing a pre-existing right or obligation. This article thus advances a two-fold argument. First, it asserts that States’ increased compliance with the obligation to provide compensation for violations of IHL attributable to them would contribute to “the restoration and maintenance of peace” just as much as the prosecution of persons responsible for serious violations thereof. Second, it argues that the individual right to claim reparations for IHL violations can only be established through a political decision of States, and that the establishment of an international mechanism for Ukraine might be an important precedent for the evolution of the current international system.
Keywords
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- Research Article
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- Copyright © The Author(s), 2024. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of ICRC
Footnotes
†
The views expressed here are the authors’ alone and do not necessarily represent those of the Ministry of Defence of the Netherlands. This research received funding from the European Union Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under Marie Skłodowska-Curie Grant Agreement No. 101031698.
The advice, opinions and statements contained in this article are those of the author/s and do not necessarily reflect the views of the ICRC. The ICRC does not necessarily represent or endorse the accuracy or reliability of any advice, opinion, statement or other information provided in this article.
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68 In both articles, the party to which this obligation is owed is not further specified. See AP I, Art. 91: “A Party to the conflict which violates the provisions of the Conventions or of this Protocol shall, if the case demands, be liable to pay compensation. It shall be responsible for all acts committed by persons forming part of its armed forces”; Hague Convention IV, Art. 3: “A belligerent party which violates the provisions of [the Hague Regulations, annexed to the Convention] shall, if the case demands, be liable to pay compensation. It shall be responsible for all acts committed by persons forming part of its armed forces.”
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84 And in fact, some States have notoriously also limited the claims that victims can put forward in domestic legislation. Reference can be made here to the Combat Exclusion Act of the United States or Israel. See Wallerstein, Jordan, “Coping with Combat Claims: An Analysis of the Foreign Claims Act's Combat Exclusion”, Cardoza Journal of Conflict Resolution, Vol. 11, No. 1, 2009Google Scholar; Abraham, Haim, “Tort Liability for Belligerent Wrongs”, Oxford Journal of Legal Studies, Vol. 39, No. 4, 2019, p. 831Google Scholar.
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93 Geneva Convention (I) for the Amelioration of the Condition of the Wounded and Sick in Armed Forces in the Field of 12 August 1949, 75 UNTS 31 (entered into force 21 October 1950) (GC I); Geneva Convention (II) for the Amelioration of the Condition of Wounded, Sick and Shipwrecked Members of the Armed Forces at Sea of 12 August 1949, 75 UNTS 85 (entered into force 21 October 1950) (GC II); Geneva Convention (III) relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War of 12 August 1949, 75 UNTS 135 (entered into force 21 October 1950) (GC III); Geneva Convention (IV) relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War of 12 August 1949, 75 UNTS 287 (entered into force 21 October 1950) (GC IV).
94 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, 78 UNTS 277, 9 December 1948 (entered into force 12 January 1951).
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97 GC I, Art. 49; GC II, Art. 50, GC III, Art. 129, GC IV, Art. 146.
98 See the preambles of UNSC Res. 827, 25 May 1993, and UNSC Res. 955, 8 November 1994.
99 Article 36(2) of the ICJ Statute, including the so-called “Optional Clause,” provides the Court with jurisdiction over contentious cases in situations when both parties make the requisite declarations under it. Statute of the International Court of Justice, 33 UNTS 933, 26 June 1945 (entered into force 24 October 1945). This was the jurisdictional basis of the only case in which the Court adjudicated alleged violations of conduct of hostilities rules. See ICJ, Armed Activities on the Territory of the Congo (Democratic Republic of the Congo v. Rwanda), Judgment, ICJ Reports 2006, para. 1.
100 See the UNCC website, available at: https://uncc.ch/; UNSC Res. 687, 3 April 1991, para. 16.
101 UNGA Res. ES-10/17, 15 December 2006, para. 3(a).
102 Agreement on Cessation of Hostilities between the Government of the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia and the Government of the State of Eritrea, 2138 UNTS I-37273, 18 June 2000 (entered into force 18 August 2000), Art. 5(1).
103 UNGA Res. A/ES-11/L.6, 7 November 2022, para. 7.
104 Ibid., paras 2–3 (emphasis added).
105 See Council of Europe Res. CM/Res(2023)3, 16 May 2023, para. 3. For more on the efforts to establish the mechanism, see Chiara Giorgetti and Patrick Pearsall, “A Significant New Step in the Creation of an International Compensation Mechanism for Ukraine”, Just Security, 27 July 2023, available at: www.justsecurity.org/87395/significant-step-in-creation-of-international-compensation-mechanism-for-ukraine/.
106 See also the consideration that without political implementation, any discussion regarding reparations is to remain a “pie in the sky”: S. Furuya, above note 16, p. 63.