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Reparations And Victim Participation: A Look At The Truth Commission Experience

Authored by: Cristián Correa, Julie Guillerot and Lisa Magarrell

Categories: Statebuilding
Sub-Categories: Political Transitions, Transitional Justice
Country: Peru, Chile
Region: Latin America and the Caribbean
Year: 2009
Citation: Correa, Cristián, Julie Guillerot, and Lisa Magarrell. "Reparations And Victim Participation: A Look At The Truth Commission Experience." In Reparations for Victims of Genocide, War Crimes and Crimes against Humanity, edited by Carla Ferstman, Mariana Goetz, and Alan Stephens, 383-414. Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill|Nijhoff, 2009.

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Executive Summary

This chapter reflects on the advantages and difficulties of victim participation in the design and implementation of reparations policy. It draws on the experience from a number of countries, highlighting Peru's ongoing experience as well as Chile's extensive history in this regard. The chapter considers the nature of victim participation, its value to both reparations and transitional processes more generally, and some of the threshold challenges of expectations, representation, and types of participation. Through case examples, the authors then take a more detailed look at how the issue plays out in three key phases of a reparations process: defining the debate, determining reparations policy, and delivering reparations to victims. The chapter offers some suggested lessons which we hope will be useful not only in the context of reparations processes in relation to truth- seeking, but more generally as well.