Chapter 4 examines the role of international administrative mechanisms (linked with a judicial mechanism) in the provision of reparations for international crimes. It questions whether reparations should be dealt with primarily by administrative mechanisms such as trust funds or claims commissions, and examines these questions through the lens of the legal framework and experience of the ICC Trust Fund for Victims (TFV), as the main administrative mechanism dealing with reparations for international crimes. Considering the important questions that the TFV raises regarding reparations and the central role it has played thus far in the ICC context, the book devotes a separate chapter to the TFV to fully engage with the unique dimensions of its mandates, the challenges it faces and whether it can serve as a model for the development of other administrative mechanisms for reparations for international crimes. This chapter carefully analyses the TFV within the ICC structure, its reparations and assistance mandates, the role it has played in the implementation of the first decisions on reparations, and how this role should further develop. It also discusses the practical implications of the activities of the TFV on reparative justice, and its practical challenges, including scarcity of resources.

Chapter 3 focuses entirely on the reparation system at the ICC. The purpose of this chapter is to engage in an in-depth discussion of the development of reparative justice at the ICC, from theory to practice. This chapter analyzes some of the key challenges that the court is facing or will likely encounter in dealing with reparative justice within the context of international criminal prosecutions and trials. This chapter is devoted to fully engaging with the issues emerging from adding a reparative dimension in a primarily criminal process and how the criminal and civil dimension are intertwined, since reparations are dependent upon criminal conviction, and how both dimensions are reconciled in practice by the court and how they should be reconciled in the future. It also aims to provide a timely and original in-depth discussion of the first four cases dealing with reparations, which will pave the way and lay the foundation for the reparation system at the ICC for years to come. These cases are: the first case before the ICC (The Prosecutor v. Thomas Lubanga Dyilo), which established principles of reparations, and its concrete impact for the development of reparations at the court; the case of the The Prosecutor v. Germain Katanga, which presented a unique set of issues, including individual reparations of a modest amount; the case of the The Prosecutor v. Al Mahdi, which presented original questions such as the concept of victims of cultural heritage; and the case of the The Prosecutor v. Jean-Pierre Bemba, which is close to being decided at the time of writing, and will present unique challenges for the adjudication of reparations by the ICC considering the high number of victims authorized to participate in proceedings (more than 5,000). This in-depth analysis of cases is original and precisely one of the factors that distinguishes this volume from previous books in the field. A comparison of this ground-breaking jurisprudence informs how the decisions of the court align and diverge on key issues, shed light on unique challenges the court is facing and provides room for some recommendations for future development, based on concrete experiences.

The Introduction sets out the main themes, the scope and structure of the book, as well as some limitations and exclusions. It explains the aims and different chapters that compose the book. It lays out the main arguments and theses that underpin the book.

Chapter 5 addresses the potential role of domestic courts and mechanisms in the adjudication and award of reparations for international crimes. It draws from existing studies in the field and examines the role that domestic courts may have in adjudicating claims of reparations for international crimes. It analyzes these questions through case studies of domestic reparations for international crimes in Bosnia and Herzegovina where the international criminal tribunal did not have a reparative dimension. It also provides a unique contribution through a timely discussion of the development of universal civil jurisdiction, including the challenges, recent case law from different countries and the United States through the Alien Tort Claims Act (ATCA), as well as recent decisions by US courts limiting its jurisdictions on the ATCA. With this chapter, the book provides a careful survey and analysis of the intricacies of international, national, and administrative mechanisms that are being developed to address reparative justice for international crimes, their unique challenges and some suggestions on how reparative justice for international crimes should develop.

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.

Chapter 6 concludes the book with a summary of the analysis of the key questions and related inquiries, bringing together the main themes discussed in the different chapters. It also offers some recommendations, in light of recent developments, of how the criminal and reparative dimensions of justice in the aftermath of international crimes can be reconciled in practice and how they should be reconciled in the future.

Chapter 2 dwells upon the operationalization of the reparative dimension of international criminal justice at the international level, with a focus on the historical evolution of reparations by international criminal courts and tribunals prior to the ICC, and the reparative justice model devised by the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC). The goal of this chapter is to retrace the diverse models in place in international criminal tribunals in regards to reparations, from a model that excludes reparations from criminal proceedings to one that has a role for victims and encompasses reparative dimensions of justice. Concerning the latter, this chapter analyzes in-depth the reparation regime developed at the ECCC, including the role of parties civiles, and the rich developing case law of the court regarding reparations. This chapter provides a careful analysis of all decisions on reparations and submissions of the parties, it engages with critical scholarship on the system developed at the ECCC, the impact of reparation orders for victims and discusses practical and policy considerations of the types of reparation that can be ordered (collective and moral reparations). It also analyses the partie civile system under which the ECCC operates and discusses the contribution of the evolving case law to the development of reparative justice for international crimes.