PROTECTING MINORITY RIGHTS – A Practical Guide to Developing Comprehensive Anti-Discrimination Legislation C. Reparation: recognition, compensation and restitution As set out above, it is well established that victims of discrimination are entitled to reparation. Indeed, as the Human Rights Committee has noted, without reparation to those whose Covenant rights have been violated, “the obligation to provide an effective remedy … is not discharged”.597 Reparation can be understood as including at least three elements: recognition, compensation and restitution. As a starting point, reparation begins with the public act of recognizing human rights harm. It may also require recognizing and rendering visible certain categories of people as well as their individual or collective experiences of suffering.598 Recognition is of particular importance for victims of human rights violations. Dinah Shelton notes that: “This recognition importantly serves to indicate that society understands and acknowledges the pain and humiliation experienced by victims, as well as their sense of injustice.”599 In addition to constituting a clear and public acknowledgment of harmful wrongdoings by perpetrators and of the discrimination suffered by certain individuals or groups, recognition has the potential to restore victims’ dignity and to enable their rehabilitation. At the regional level, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights has advanced the incorporation of victims’ demands for recognition in the determination of the scope of reparation measures.600 For instance, in various cases, the Court has ordered States to acknowledge culpability publicly; apologize to victims and family members; publish selections from its judgments in the official government journal or in other media of national circulation (e.g. radio or newspaper); and build memorials and/or organize commemorations in honour of the victims.601 Reparation also includes financial compensation for both material and non-material harm. The Human Rights Committee has stated that reparation for violation of the rights protected by the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights “entails appropriate compensation”.602 The Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights has taken a similar position.603 As with fines, it is necessary to ensure the availability of a sufficiently broad range of levels of possible compensation or damages, such that the criteria of “effective, proportionate and dissuasive” are met. The Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination has held that victims of discrimination are entitled to financial compensation above and beyond basic financial damage, noting that “courts and other competent authorities should consider awarding financial compensation for damage, material or moral, suffered by a victim, whenever appropriate”.604 The Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women has noted that States should ensure the availability of compensation, which may be provided in the form of “money, goods or services”.605 80 597 Human Rights Committee, general comment No. 31 (2004), para. 16. 598 Peter J. Dixon, “Reparations and the politics of recognition”, in Contested Justice: The Politics and Practice of International Criminal Court Interventions, Christian De Vos, Sara Kendall and Carsten Stahn, eds. (Cambridge, United Kingdom, Cambridge University Press, 2015). 599 Dinah Shelton, Remedies in International Human Rights Law, 3rd edition (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2005), p. 14 (footnotes omitted). 600 See, for example, Inter-American Court of Human Rights, Río Negro Massacres v. Guatemala, Judgment, 4 September 2012. The Río Negro Massacres case constitutes an interesting example of recognition, as the Inter-American Court of Human Rights requested the public acknowledgment of the massacres committed against the Maya Achí communities by Guatemala (paras. 276–278) and the creation of a museum in honour of the victims of the internal armed conflict (paras. 279–280), among other reparation measures. 601 Thomas M. Antkowiak, “An emerging mandate for international courts: victim centered remedies and restorative justice”, Stanford Journal of International Law, vol. 47, No. 2 (2011). As noted by Thomas Antkowiak, public apologies by a State first occurred in 2004 during the hearings for the cases of Plan de Sánchez Massacre v. Guatemala and Molina-Theissen v. Guatemala. 602 Human Rights Committee, general comment No. 31 (2004), para. 16. 603 Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, general comment No. 20 (2009), para. 40. 604 Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, general recommendation No. 26 (2000), para. 2. 605 Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women, general recommendation No. 33 (2015), para. 19 (b). See also, Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women, general recommendation No. 28 (2010), para. 32.