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27 Neth. Q. Hum. Rts. 3 (2009)

handle is hein.journals/nethqur42 and id is 1 raw text is: COLUMN POST-CONFLICT REPARATION, RESTITUTION AND HUMAN RIGHTS - WHERE TO HEAD FROM HERE?* Three excellent articles within this volume of NQHR address several of the pertinent themes surrounding the question of restitution and reparation following conflict. A common thread running through each of these pieces - beyond the descriptions of the various trials and tribulations the restitution concept has faced through the years - centres on what can perhaps best be characterised as restitution's weakest link. Recognising the various manifestations of restitution and reparation as rights, even if we are only part of the way there, may turn out to have been the easy part of the process when the full history of restitution is finally written. Achieving these rights in practice, on the other hand, presents human rights practitioners of all ilk's - lawyers, researchers, UN officials, advocates, community organisers, academics and others - with some of the most daunting tasks anywhere within the increasingly vast human rights domain. For with the promise of restitution we implicitly demand not merely assurances that past acts of extreme injustice will not occur again, but also that that most difficult task of turning back the clock of abuse and cruelty to a time and place where peace and relative calm prevailed can be made real. With reparations we seek to repair the damage done, but usually in a limited way, often through compensation and admissions of accountability. With restitution, we seek something more than that; here we strive to create conditions whereby past acts are in effect reversed leading ideally to a situation where the tragic months, years, and even decades of forced displacement are legally and practically made null and void. Restitution offers the promise that the wrong done will not be allowed to stand. It tells those planning to 'ethnically cleanse' an area, those who are intent on forcibly removing people and populations from their places of historic residence, that you will not prevail, you will not get away with your crimes, you will not be allowed to take what is not rightfully yours. Thus we have the lofty principle that if abuse, extreme injustice, an illegal act or a crime that caused the forced displacement of a person, family or community, these * Scott Leckie is the Founder and Director of Displacement Solutions (www.displacementsolutions. org), an organisation dedicated to resolving cases of forced displacement throughout the world. He is also Founder and Special Advisor to the Centre on Housing Rights and Evictions (COHRE), an organisation he headed from 1991-2007. Netherlands Quarterly of Human Rights, Vol. 27/1, 3-7, 2009. © Netherlands Institute of Human Rights (SIM), Printed in the Netherlands. 3

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