Considering State Reparation for Victims of Gross Human Rights Violations in Africa: Challenges in the Effective Enforcement and Implementation of Victims’ Rights

Abstract

Claiming reparations for human rights violation by states or by any governmental agencies, have been a vital challenge at local and international levels. Although, there has been few developments in theory and in reality of reparations for human rights violations by states in some parts of the world as will be seen later in this article, many of the violations committed in Africa, in places like South Africa, Uganda, Nigeria and elsewhere, during colonial times either remained unresolved, partly reparated or reparations denied completely. As a result of what has been said, issues concerning responsibility for gross human rights abuses have never been considered favorably in Africa. In some African states for example, the way states deal with past human rights abuses is often dependent on the way in which political change has occurred and the way the state deals with the tensions between justice, truth and reconciliation. Beyond the foregoing, irrespective of the legal requirement to afford reparation which in itself makes reparation a vital component of the underlying need to respect victims’ rights to justice and to underscore the role of law in society, reparation serves a number of purposes. One of such purposes include but not limited to victims’ right to recover and/or receive compensation or reparation for past violations; helping to restore the disequilibrium between those whose rights have been violated and society which typically underpins human rights violations. More 6so, assisting in victims’ rehabilitation and taking measures to prevent recurrence of violations will help victims overcome trauma, restore confidence in the legitimacy of the justice system and the affirmation of the rule of law.