Origins of the Victims’ Right to Redress: The Historical Swing from Restoration to Retribution and Back to Restoration

Abstract

To appreciate why, historically, victims of crimes under international law have encountered great difficulty in obtaining their basic right to reparation, it is valuable to trace the origins and evolution of this right in different legal traditions. Although most of the world’s legal and cultural traditions have long embraced the basic principle of victims’ redress, the rise of retributive approaches gradually eroded the central position victims had enjoyed in early tribal societies, and this often hindered the development of adequate reparation mechanisms, frustrating the victims’ right to redress and hopes for rehabilitation. Generally, current systems of justice administration at both domestic and international levels remain firmly anchored to retributive principles and their primary focus is fixed almost exclusively on the prosecution and punishment of the perpetrator, rather than on the rehabilitation of the victim. In the specific case of crimes under international law, the mainly retributive character of justice administration systems can still be considered to be one of the structural obstacles preventing the full enjoyment of the victims’ right to redress.