Leadership 500 Summit - Scottsdale, AZ
Today, in America and worldwide, we again face one of those historically significant moments when the momentum for reparations efforts rises and arguments that seemed morally and legally unfeasible reemerge with renewed political vigor and legal vitality.
-Charles Ogletree Jr. 1
As Germany and other interests that profited owed reparations to Jews following the holocaust of Nazi persecution, America and other interests that profited owe reparations to blacks following the holocaust of African slavery which has carried forward from slavery's inception for 350-odd years to the end of U.S. government-embraced racial discrimination.
-Randall Robinson 2
Introduction
Genocide, murder, torture, rape and sexual mutilation are examples of atrocities often committed during political violence. Millions of men, women and children have suffered such human rights abuses. Examples span the globe including Hitler’s efforts to exterminate Jews during the Holocaust; the Hutu’s efforts to eradicate the Tutsi’s in the Rwandan genocide; Saddam Hussein’s use of chemical weapons against the Kurds; the Japanese government’s organized rape and forced militarized prostitution of the Asian Comfort women during World War II; and the U.S. government’s range of atrocities against African-Americans during slavery, Jim Crow and the Civil Rights movement as well as the internment of Japanese-Americans during World War II. Such violent acts are not new in global society but the consensus that impunity for these acts is no longer acceptable is novel. 3 If impunity is intolerable, how do we achieve justice and restoration for the victims? When enemies must once again be neighbors, how can society function and violence not resurge if justice and restoration have not been achieved?
Efforts to seek justice for victims through punishing perpetrators and pursuing reparations are now global. Institutional mechanisms have been created to enable such efforts domestically and internationally. It follows that victims now have legal options outside of their national borders. For example, international and domestic war crimes tribunals are designed to punish perpetrators; truth commissions are created to reveal the truth for the historical record; and reparations measures are designed to repair injury, restore victims to previous status, and compensate them for their loss. These tools are used to facilitate reconciliation and peace. From the Nuremberg trials following World War II to Saddam Hussein and Slobodan Milosevic’s war crimes tribunals, efforts to punish perpetrators for crimes against humanity have increased. Global reparations efforts have also emerged as a form of justice but less emphasis has been placed on understanding whether and how these efforts restore and compensate victims. 4 Reparations cases are increasing in number globally as well as expanding in terms of involvement of international actors and venues in which cases are pursued. The purpose of this article is to 1) present a definition and examine types of reparations, 2) evaluate the role of standing and jurisdiction in reparations efforts in the domestic and international arenas and 3) examine the domestic and international aspects of selective reparations claims efforts. I argue that with the evolution of international law, reparations movements are not only increasing globally but also claimants are targeting perpetrators above, below and including the state level in international venues with growing frequency.
Definition of Reparations
The term reparation may be defined as one or all of the following: 1) a repairing or keeping in repair, 2) the act of making amends or giving satisfaction for wrongdoing, and 3) the payment of damages; compensation in money or materials payable by a defeated nation for damages to or expenditures sustained by another nation as a result of hostilities with the defeated nation. 5 Reparations for defeat in war, human rights abuses and crimes against humanity have been paid out globally. For instance, Iraq was forced to pay reparations not only to Kuwait but also to member states of the coalition force when it invaded Kuwait during the Persian Gulf War in the early 1990s. Because the United Nations was part of the coalition and received Iraqi reparations, it created a special agency called, the Compensation Commission, to manage the reparative measures. Holocaust survivors continue to receive a monthly reparations check for compensation regardless of where they live in the world for the last fifty years. The United States government has tried to make amends with Japanese-Americans for their internment during World War II through an official apology and reparations paid to survivors.
From a global perspective, reparations have traditionally focused on compensating defeated states paid to the victor states at the end of a war. Under modern international law, states are the primary actors in international relations. 6 As a result, these actors alone had standing to seek and be the target of such compensation. Reparations were narrowly defined as “fines exacted among states, usually for damages incurred during war”. 7 International law has now included individuals, groups and international organizations as subjects of international law that can make claims in some international and domestic courts. 8 A range of different responses to atrocities and wrongdoing including restitution, compensation, rehabilitation, satisfaction and guarantees of non-repetition are now available.” 9 Thus, reparations are about repairing, making amends and compensation. The term may also mean a coordinated set of reparative measures with massive coverage. 10
Reparations may assume a range of forms. As the kinds of actors and atrocities have expanded in reparations cases, so has the typology for reparations. A common reparations myth is that financial compensation is its only form. Moral/symbolic reparations and material reparations are two broad categories of reparations. 11 Moral/symbolic reparations include the following: disclosure of facts, public naming, official apologies, acknowledgement of wrongdoing, judicial proceedings or administrative procedures (e.g. truth commissions), lustration (i.e. remove all perpetrators from positions of power), and exhumation of human remains. Collective moral/symbolic reparations would include public memorials, days of remembrance, parks, forms of education, rewritten historical texts. 12 Material reparations include restitution like the return of ones belongings and restoration of a condition (i.e. liberty, citizenship, other legal rights, employment). It also includes monetary compensation, rehabilitative services to victims (e.g. medical care, psychological care), cultural and religious property as well as bones of loved ones. 13 Because atrocities from political violence have far reaching consequences how we conceptualize repair, restoration or compensation must be broad as well. 14
Standing and Jurisdiction in Reparations Claims Cases
Punishing perpetrators for atrocities is a long, arduous and uncertain process. Are the alleged perpetrators really guilty and to what extent? How do we arrest the indictees if they are wealthy and can hide anywhere in the world (e.g. Charles Taylor)? How do international courts deal with sovereignty issues when state governments refuse to turnover alleged perpetrators, witnesses or key documents in a trial? Such questions are key in international criminal justice. 15 When these mechanisms slowly turn the wheels of justice or are too weak and/or lack legitimacy to take effect, what other options do victims have to pursue justice? Reparations allow victims to remember, repair, and be compensated in spite of suboptimal outcomes of punishment efforts.
The United Nations Charter established the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in 1946. Countries’ governments are the only actors who have standing to bring cases against each other in this forum. Moreover, the ICJ does not have the jurisdiction to hear cases involving non-state actors. Individuals, groups and international organizations have no standing in this venue. 16 Until the 1990s, no international courts were available options to victims who were non-state actors. The Nuremberg tribunals were the first tribunals to try individuals for war crimes and crimes against humanity. In fact, these tribunals were controversial for two reasons. First, the crimes for which the perpetrators were being accused were not crimes under international law at the time that they commenced. Second, the tribunals were military tribunals and viewed as victor’s justice. 17 The accused believed that a fair trial was impossible and that they would be found guilty and executed regardless of the design of the trial. The field of international criminal justice arose from unsettled feelings among the victors for convicting Nazi criminals of actions that were not crimes at the time they occurred. Given the superpower rivalry during the Cold War, international criminal justice stagnated as an area of international law and countries could not agree on the creation of an international criminal court until the Rwandan genocide and the atrocities committed in the Yugoslavian civil conflict in the 1990s. The international consensus that impunity was no longer acceptable intensified. The International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) and the International Criminal Tribunal for Yugoslavia (ICTY) were created. Ad hoc war crimes tribunals provided an opportunity to prosecute governments, groups and individuals for war crimes without the permanency of an international court. 18 The creation of these war crimes tribunals sparked a new era of using war crimes tribunals to punish perpetrators for war crimes and crimes against humanity. Such institutional mechanisms are an advance in the international criminal justice system but are also plagued with problems related to effectiveness and legitimacy. An example of a different kind of international court dealing with punishment for political violence is the Hariri murder court recently approved by a UN Security Council vote. It is going to be designed to try suspects in the murder of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri. While the Lebanese government supports this court, the pro-Syrian opposition does not. It may compromise Lebanese sovereignty and raises the issue of whether such an international court forced on a country is legitimate. 19 Such courts that deal with international criminal justice focus on punishing perpetrators without dealing with the restoration of victims and their families.
The emergence of war crimes tribunals, some truth commissions, regional courts and the creation of the International Criminal Court (ICC) in 1998 are now international options in the international criminal justice system. The ICC was designed to be an independent, permanent court that tries persons accused of the most serious crimes of international concern, namely genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes. So individuals and groups can seek reparations for such atrocities in this court and can also be the target of such claims. Because of its limited resources, the court only brings cases against individuals accused of the most heinous crimes and for individuals who suffered the most severe atrocities. The Court set up a Victim’s Trust Fund to provide compensation for victims. Compensation may be awarded from this fund or the Court may compel the perpetrator to pay reparations. For example, the Court may provide money for homes to be rebuilt after being destroyed in an ethnic conflict. Over ten years ago, rape and sexual mutilation of women and men were not considered war crimes and therefore could not be punished in domestic or international venues as such. They are now considered war crimes and the Fund provides reparations in form of compensation to victims of these crimes as well as psychological, and medical services to help rehabilitate them. In the next year, the ICC will hear its first cases.
Regional human rights courts have emerged as another option for victims pursuing reparations claims. For example, the European Court of Justice was created in 1950 under The Convention for the Protection of Human Rights. Different kinds of actors have standing to bring claims and to be the target of claims in this court. The original treaty allows individual applicants (including individuals, groups of individuals or non-governmental organizations) to bring claims against states only if those states accept the claim as legitimate. Recently, the Convention was amended to make acceptance of a claim from an individual applicant compulsory. 20 This means that individuals can bring a reparations claim against a government of a country in this court. The Kurdish people have pursued several such claims against several governments. In sum, with the evolution of international law and the international consensus that impunity for atrocities is no longer acceptable, victims have a range of domestic and international options through which reparations claims may be pursued. In the next section, examples of reparations cases in which domestic and international actors as well as venues are involved in varying degrees are discussed.
Reparations pursuits at the Domestic Level: The African-American Reparations Movement
Largest mob mass lynching on Aug. 3 1906 in North Carolina 21
The African-American reparations movement is one of the most difficult cases in the world and in history given the time delay between slavery and African-American standing as citizens in U.S. courts. 22 It is an example of a reparations case in which the venues and actors involved in the cases are primarily domestic with the potential to move to international venues. Judicial, legislative and economic strategies against federal, state and local governments as well as corporations are characteristic. Because of issues of sovereign immunity and statute of limitations, victims in more recent cases are beginning to look beyond U.S. borders and consider bringing claims to international legal venues. 23 The reparations case for the Tulsa Race Riots of 1921 is an example of this progression.
Victim of Tulsa Oklahoma Race Riot of 1921 24
The reparations case for the Tulsa Riots of 1921 is considered a key case in the African-American reparations movement in the United States. A young, African-American male was accused of raping a young, white female. He was arrested and before he could be lynched African-Americans from his Greenwood neighborhood rushed to the jail to protect him. The chief of police deputized hundreds of white men and a riot ensued. 25 A thousand homes in Greenwood were burned and thousands of people became homeless and refugees. Three hundred African-American residents were killed. Most of the victims were shot and lynched. 26 The city of Tulsa said that it would compensate the survivors but it did not. In 1997, the Tulsa Race Riot Commission was created to study the tragedy and make recommendations. In 2001, the commission’s report was released and it recommended that the state compensate the survivors. The governor of Oklahoma at the time, Frank Keating, argued “that the state law prohibited Oklahoma from making reparations for any past mass crimes committed by its officials or on the state’s behalf.” 27 In response, a local group called the Tulsa Reparations Coalition formed. It created a committee to evaluate whether a lawsuit should be filed against the city and state. Such a move would challenge existing law. After little success in bringing a lawsuit, the Coalition turned to the Reparations Coordination Committee, whose mission is to pursue reparative measures for slavery injustices and atrocities committed during racial violence using domestic and international mechanisms. The committee is composed of lawyers, academics and activists. Key members include Charles J. Ogletree ( Harvard law professor and board member of TransAfrica), the late Johnnie Cochran (civil rights attorney), Randall Robinson (founder and former president of TransAfrica) and Adjoa A. Aiyetoro (senior legal consultant for the National Coalition of Blacks for Reparations in America (N’COBRA)). This committee employs multiple strategies for pursuing reparations. Its basic premise is that slavery was fundamental to the American economy, both North and South. The legal strategy seeks compensation from governments and companies that once profited from slavery. “These entities are pursued if they have employed slave labor, insured slave owners or invested financially in other aspects of the slave trade.” The committee argues that the Tulsa case is important for two reasons. First, it is a part of a larger reparations strategy for African-Americans. The case is also so recent that survivors are still alive and significant documentation of what happened and who did it exists. Second, “the lawsuit established a relationship between reparations for slavery and other acts of racial violence in the 20th century thus laying the foundations for future claims.” 28 The case went to the U.S. Supreme Court and was thrown out based on statute of limitations issues. 29 The Reparations Coordination Committee is considering pursuing the claim in the Inter-American Court for Human Rights.
On the political front, John Conyers proposed a bill to establish the Commission to Study Reparations Proposals for African-Americans in 1989. The goal of this bill was to evaluate the effects of slavery and did not refer to reparations. The bill was introduced as House Resolution 40 (HR 40). 30 If it passes, it would create a mechanism for determining the truth of American’s slavery history and the extent of its economic impact on the U.S. economy and the African-American community in particular. It has been stalled in Congress for years. The prospects for this legislation being passed are dim however. Because of statute of limitations, sovereign immunity, and lack of legislative support, the African-American reparations movement has seen few successes in these venues. 31 Recent successes in the reparations movement have been achieved through alternative strategies like city ordinances and legal cases against corporations.
Large cities like Chicago, Washington D.C., Detroit and seven other cities passed city ordinances that require companies to disclose their past. California led the way in using state and city ordinances that require companies that want to do business within either entity to disclose their connection to slavery whether that history includes owning, financing or insuring slaves as property as well as forcing these people into labor. 32 For instance, Wachovia Bank was required to investigate its own connection to slavery by the city of Chicago in order to participate in the redevelopment of a housing project on Chicago’s South Side. One of Wachovia’s banks “put hundreds of slaves to work on railroads and another accepted more than 100 more as collateral on defaulted loans in the 1800s.” 33 Wachovia ultimately publicly apologized to the African-American community for its role in slavery. 34 Some activists view such city ordinances as vehicles for establishing the truth of corporate complicity in slavery and acknowledgement of corporate actions and apologies as a method of laying the groundwork for reparations payments. Wachovia has paid no reparations to date. Corporations argue that they should not be required to pay reparations for atrocities that happened so long ago. 35
An example of how one individual can make a difference Deadria Farmer-Paellman has found another strategy for disclosing corporate complicity with slavery. Many other companies also made their fortunes based on such owning, employing or insuring of slaves. If these companies do not pursue contracts with cities that have passed laws regarding disclosing slavery connections, no other mechanism was available. This lawyer/activist and her group, the Restitution Study Group, decided to use research as a way to connect companies to past atrocities and disclose their histories for them and/or bring lawsuits against them in U.S. courts for unjust enrichment. 36 CSX, Fleet Boston and other companies are examples. Other companies she has investigated include New York Life Insurance Company and Aetna Insurance Company. Both companies insured the lives of slaves as property and slaveholders as the beneficiaries in the 1800s. Such insurance allowed slaves to be used in activities that were dangerous and even life threatening because slave owners would be compensated if the slave died. Her research linked JP Morgan Chase/Bank to slavery. It financed the purchase of slaves as property—similar to financing for an automobile. The company responded with a public apology and commitment to pay $5 million in reparations over 5 years in college scholarships to slave descendants living in Louisiana. 37 Farmer-Paellman argues that issues such as sovereign immunity of the government and the statute of limitations make it difficult to pursue reparations claims involving the government. She demonstrated that research could disclose the fact that a company made immoral gains by profiting from slavery for which an action for unjust enrichment may be filed. 38
In sum, HR 40, though stalled, sets the stage for acknowledgement and disclosure of the truth of slavery’s effect on America if ever passed. City ordinances compel companies to reveal their connection to slavery, of their own volition, if the corporations want city or state contracts. Lawsuits that demonstrate unjust enrichment can also lead to corporate reparations claims and awards. The African-American reparations movement is the most difficult in the world because of the length of time that has passed since many atrocities have been committed. As a result, victim advocates have pursued alternative venues for justice and restoration within the domestic legal and political framework. It is an example of creativity in reparations claims pursuit at the domestic level. The Tulsa, Oklahoma case may be the first case in the movement to cross borders and pursue the claim in an international court. The African-American reparations movement is an example of a movement characterized by multiple claims, varied strategies and venues for pursuing justice and compensation primarily at the domestic level. Because of U.S. hegemony, globally, many activists are skeptical about the impact of a negative judgment against the U.S. in international courts and whether it would be sufficient pressure for the government to take action at home. It is ironic that the U.S. government has not paid reparations against African-Americans and yet it has pressured the Japanese government to pay reparations to Asian Comfort women. 39 In the next section, two reparations claims involving international organizations are discussed.
Reparations claims involving International Organizations: The 1949 Reparations Case and The Chixoy Dam Reparations case
The evolution of international law has led actors above and below states to gain standing in some international venues. The 1949 Reparations Case involving the United Nations (UN) and Israel set the stage for international organizations to pursue reparations as well as be the target of such claims. Israel compensated the UN on behalf of a UN mediator who was killed by Israeli soldiers while attempting to mediate skirmishes that resulted from the 1947 UN Partition Plan, which divided the territory into two states. The Jewish area consisted of 55% of the land and the Arab area consisted of 45%. The UN managed Jerusalem because it was considered an international territory. Although the UN could not bring the case to the ICJ because it had no standing, the ICJ is allowed to give legal opinions for international organizations under its mandate. In its opinion, the ICJ determined that because the UN deals with the most dangerous security issues in the world and because its employees must travel to and work in extremely dangerous countries and territories in the world, the UN had the right to seek reparations claims for atrocities against member and non-member states for itself and on behalf of its employees. 40 Israel ultimately settled the claim with the UN and paid the organization $30,000 at the time. As international organizations activities increase in the area of international security, more of these organizations will seek claims for atrocities committed against them or their employees.
Names of the victims of the 1982 massacre in Rio Negro.
The Chixoy Dam Reparations Case is an example of a claim targeted at a government (Guatemala) and international organizations, namely, the World Bank and the Inter-American Development Bank. Both international organizations financed the construction of the Chixoy Dam during years of internal armed conflict in the 1970s and 1980s. This dam is a major source of electrical power for this country. 41 A repressive military dictatorship governed Guatemala at the time. The government used political terror to remove Mayan communities from their ancestral lands so that the dam could be built. Approximately, 3,500 Mayan community members were forcibly removed and displaced without adequate resettlement and compensation. 42 About 6,000 families living in the area lost land and their livelihoods. The Guatemalan government committed atrocities “when community members refused to relocate and sought better compensation, they were massacred, tortured and kidnapped.” 43 In the village of Rio Negro, 444 of the 791 residents were killed. Most of these people were women and children. 44
The Guatemalan government created armed units called Civil Defense Patrols (PACs) to stop subversion against the dam project. A PAC was created near Rio Negro in Xococ. People in this area were considered aggressive so it was called the Combative Village of Xococ. The Xococ PAC was instructed by the government to use terror to break the people of Rio Negro. On February 13, 1982, villagers were told to turn in their identification card and would get new ones in a week. The 73 villagers that obeyed were killed. The men of Rio Negro fled to the hills and left the woman and children behind. A month later, the Xococ PAC came to Rio Negro and killed 177 women and children and two months later another 84 people. By September, 92 more villagers were burned to death. 45
The Guatemalan Truth Commission (Comison para el Esclarecimiento Historico – CEH) was established to disclose the truth of the tragedy for the historical record. After exhumation of human remains and investigation of the Rio Negro massacre, “the Commission found that the state-sponsored violence constituted genocide” The survivors targeted the Guatemalan government for reparations for the atrocities it committed toward the Mayan community, the land it stole and the displacement of the people. The World Bank and the Inter-American Development Bank were also targets of the claim because these international organizations financed the dam project through loans given to the government and they sent teams to monitor the progress of the projects. Both organizations were aware of the atrocities committed and did not acknowledge them or do anything to end such activities. The International Rivers Network asked the University of California at Santa Cruz’s Center for Political Ecology to conduct a study on how to deal with the reparations issues in this case. It recommended compensation, replacement of lost lands, free access to water, improved housing conditions, access to health and education funds and infrastructural development. 46 This case is among the first in which international organizations are targets of a reparations claim. These actors are usually the venue within which the claim is pursued or a victim is pursuing a claim. This case is not an anomaly. Potential reparations claims may arise toward other international organizations like the UN for peacekeepers sexually molesting women and girls in Congolese refugee camps. A commission composed of members of the community, the government and the organizations has been created to negotiate a reparations program for the peoples of the Chixoy Dam river basin area. In the following section, a reparations case that is global in terms of the perpetrators, victims, and management of reparations payments will be discussed.
Global Reparations Movement: The Jewish Reparations for the Holocaust case
Corpses in Auschwitz; from Yad Vashem 47
The Jewish reparations case is probably the most well-known reparations case. States, corporations, groups and individuals were involved in the atrocities committed while the survivors and their families targeted these actors globally for one of the largest reparations payouts for atrocities committed during political violence since World War II and possibly in history. The genocide that was committed against the Jewish nation is called the Holocaust. Hitler’s Nazi government systematically killed six million European Jews during World War II. 48 This government’s policy included planned stages of the Holocaust, which included: 1) legislation to remove Jews from civil society before World War II; 2) concentration camps in which inmates were used for slave labor until they died from disease; 3) through war the Nazi’s captured territory in Europe and murdered Jews and political opponents in mass shootings, and 4) Jews and Roma people were imprisoned in ghettos and then transported to concentration camps and later exterminated in gas chambers. It was a systematic effort to eliminate an entire ethnic group. Germany, during this period, has been called a “genocidal nation.” 49
Reparations paid for the atrocities Germany committed during World War II were extensive and included war reparations, reparations to the Jewish nation as well as such compensation to individuals in the Jewish community. When Germany signed treaties ending the war, it promised to pay the Allies that defeated it $20 billion in machinery equipment for manufacturing plants. 50 At the end of the war, atrocities committed against European Jews created more support for the creation of the state of Israel. In 1951, Chancellor Konrad Adenauer gave a speech in which he claimed that European Jews should be compensated for the human rights violations committed against them. To address repairing, restoring and compensating victims and their families, Jewish national and international organizations met in New York in 1951 and created the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany or “The Claims Conference.” This non-governmental organization (NGO) negotiated a material reparations program with the German government. In 1952 the German government and the Claims conference negotiated an agreement that called for 1) enactment of laws that would compensate Nazi victims directly and 2) the German government provided the Israeli government with DM 450 million for the relief, rehabilitation and resettlement of Jewish victims of Nazi prosecution. 51
The Claims Conference mission was designed to: 1) negotiate compensation; 2) negotiate restitution of property stolen; 3) create compensation programs; and 4) recover unclaimed stolen Jewish property and other tasks. The negotiated agreements allowed for 500 capital projects in 29 countries. The conference wanted to strengthen the community across national boundaries, maintain its cohesion and independence. The German government paid $60 billion in Nazi prosecutions, DM 100 billion in claims and more than 287,000 survivors received life time pensions under German indemnification laws. Hundreds of thousands of survivors received one time payments under German compensation laws. The Claims conference negotiated approximately 25 agreements with Germany. Other agreements included reparations paid by the auto industries in Germany and Austria for using Jewish slave labor. The Austrian, Swiss and Hungarian governments set up reparations funds as well. The German government also paid the state of Israel reparations to manage the influx of refugees from Europe. Part of the negotiations included an end date at which time no more Jewish reparations claims could be filed. The deadline was December 31, 2006. 52
In sum, I have argued that with the evolution of international law, reparations movements are not only increasing globally but also claimants are targeting perpetrators above, below and including the state level in international venues with growing frequency. Impunity without consequences is no longer acceptable. Reparations focus on repairing and compensating the victim rather than punishing the perpetrator. This approach has strengths and weaknesses but it is undeniable that international and domestic actors may pursue reparations claims in domestic and international venues as well as be the target of claims at a greater rate globally. Whether reparative measures actually facilitate justice and prevent the resurgence of violence and acts of oppression remains to be seen.
References
Baur, Yehuda. 2002. Rethinking the Holocaust. New Haven: Yale University Press.
BBC News. 2007. UN approves Hariri Murder Court. May 30. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/6703587.stm
Bottigliero, Ilaria. 2004. Redress for Victims of Crimes under International Law. The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff Publishers.
Brune, Adrian. 2002. Tulsa’s shame, race riot victims still wait for promised reparations,
The Nation. March, pp. 11–14.
Brooks, Roy L. ed. 1999. When Sorry Isn’t Enough: The Controversy over Apologies and Reaprations for Human Injustice. New York: New York University.
Claims Conference. 2007. http://www.claimscon.org/?url=about_us
de Greiff, Pablo. 2006a. Repairing the Past: Compensation for Victims of Human Rights Violations in The Handbook of Reparations. Oxford: Oxford University Press, Pablo de Greiff, ed.
Fears, Darryl. 2005. Seeking More Apologies for Slavery. Washington Post. June. 20.
Gibson, James L. 2002. "Truth, Justice, and Reconciliation: Judging the Fairness of Amnesty in South Africa." American Journal of Political Science 46.3: 540-56.
Hayner, Priscilla B. 2001. Unspeakable Truths: Facing the Challenge of Truth Commissions. New York: Routledge.
Howard-Hassman, Rhoda E. 2004. Getting to Reparations: Japanese-Americans and African-Americans. Social Forces. 83,2: 823-840.
International National Rivers Network. 2007. Chixoy Dam, Guatemala: Reparations Campaign for Communities Affected by Chixoy Dam. http://www.irn.org/programs/chixoy/
Janis, Mark W. and John E. Noyes. 2006. International Law: Cases and Commentary. 3rd. edition.
Johnston, Barbara Rose. 2005. Chixoy Dam Legacy Issues Study Vol. I: Executive Summary: Consequential Damages and Reparation: Recommendations for Remedy. Santa Cruz: Center for Political Ecology.
Malveaux, Suzette M. 2005. Statutes of Limitations: A Policy Analysis in the Context of Reparations Litigation. GeorgeWashingtonUniversity Law Review. Vol. 68.
Martin, Michael T. and Marilyn Yaquinto. 2004. Reparations for ‘America’s Holocaust’: Activism for Global Justice. NY: Sage Publications for the Institute of Race Relations, 45 (1).
Minow, Martha. Between Vengeance and Justice: Facing History after Genocide and Mass Violence. Boston: Beacon Press, 1998.
Niewyk, Donald L. 2000. The Columbia Guide to the Holocaust, NY: Columbia University Press.
Ogletree Jr., Charles J. 2003. Repairing the Past: New Efforts in the Reparations Debate in America. Harvard Civil Rights-Civil Liberties Review. Vol. 38.
Powers, Kathy L. and Christian Davenport. 2007.Violence and Restoration: Understanding the Causes and Consequences of Reparations. Project funding grant proposal to study reparations movements globally presently under review at the National Science Foundation.
Robinson, Randall. 2000. The Debt: What America Owes to Blacks. NY: E.P. Hutton.
Snyder, Jack and Leslie Vinjamuri. 2003/04. Trials and Errors: Principle and Pragmatism in Strategies of International Justice. International Security, 28, 3: 5-44.
Teitel, Ruti G. Transitional Justice. New York: Oxford University Press, 2000.
12 Scholars debate whether truthtelling and truth commissions are a form of reparations (De Greiff 2006).
15 See Vinjamuri and Snyder (2003/2004) for discussion of the weaknesses of international war crimes tribunals.
21 Picture is from the Kluttz’s Studio and was taken on August. 6, 1906 in Salisbury, North Carolina. http://withoutsanctuary.org/main.html.
23 Statute of limitations means that a defendant cannot be tried for a crime after certain period of time the crime has allegedly been committed. Sovereign immunity means that government officials cannot be brought to trial for actions commenced in the service of the state (i.e. country) (Martin and Yaquinto 2005; Janis and Noyes 2006).
24 http://www.tulsareparations.org/FinalReport.htm. This picture appeared in the report courtesy of the Greenwood Cultural Center.
31 African-American farmers received reparations for the racist policies regarding subsidies and loans as well as land seizures.
39 House Resolution 121 calls on the Japanese government to apologize and pay reparations to the Asian Comfort Women.
47 Source of image is http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Holocaust123.jpg.
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