Human rights and making amends

The Human Rights Victims Reparation and Recognition Act of 2013 (RA 10368) has been in limbo for nearly a year until President Aquino appointed early this month the nine members of the Human Rights Victims Claims Board the independent body that the law created to process and approve claims against a P10-billion fund earmarked for distribution to martial law victims of human rights violations.

The Board has 30 days to organize itself and another 30 days to come out with approved implementing rules and regulations. Barring any hitches, this should start the process of reparation.

Not all human rights victims under martial law welcomed the idea of filing a class action lawsuit against Ferdinand Marcos when it was raised in 1986 or thereabout. Some resented the implication of assigning money value to a fight that they put up in pursuit of a principle. Money, they thought, debased it. Particularly repelling to them was the vision of the victims negotiating with the Marcoses for settlement on the issue of wealth that was plundered from the people. It was blood money: would they lend a hand and their names in cleaning it?

More than 9,500 victims joined the class suit anyway, most of them reportedly coming from the rural poor, apparently too poor to invoke a non-pecuniary principle, without necessarily disdaining it.

Going by its word origin, reparation includes repairing, setting right, making amends, and also restoring to good condition. It appeals to me because it intrinsically acknowledges that a harm (damage) is done or a wrong (crime) is committed, which entitles the victim to any or all forms of reparation provided by law, including monetary compensation.

Our first collective encounter with the concept (as reparations, plural) was after the Second World War when Japan, as loser, made amends to the Filipino people for bringing war into their homeland, with all its inherent evil. The victim of the internationally wrongful acts was the state, subsuming the people. Our word in this sense stood the same as war indemnities which in fact was the currency until the end of World War I.

In the sense that RA 10368 uses it, the focus shifts to individuals rights as a subject in international law to pursue violations of human rights. Our term in this manner has evolved only recently from a series of international instruments on human rights, beginning post-World War II with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

The evolution started with a broad and sweeping call for states to ensure that any person whose rights are violated shall have an effective remedy.

A more detailed mention of a remedy appeared only recently in the Rome Statute of the International Court of Justice (entered into force on 1 July 2002), as contained in one exclusive Article providing for reparations to victims, including restitution, compensation, and rehabilitation.

Three years later, the UN General Assembly would adopt (in 16 December 2005) Resolution 60/147, titled, Basic Principles and Guidelines on the Right to a Remedy and Reparation for Victims of Gross Violations of International Human Rights Law and Serious Violations of International Humanitarian Law. The Resolution now stands as the key document in defining rights, remedies and reparation in international human rights.

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Human rights and making amends