Reparations: To What End? Developing the State’s Positive Duties to Address Socio-economic Harms in Post-conflict Settings through the European Court of Human Rights

Abstract

Abstract Despite being conceived as a framework to protect civil and political rights in peacetime, the European Convention on Human Rights is currently being applied in states affected by armed conflicts with challenging socio-economic demands. This article outlines the European Court of Human Rights’ current approach for the protection of human rights in conflict-related scenarios and critically examines its suitability to cope with the socio-economic challenges that arise in post-conflict settings. With recourse to legal theory and moral thought, it explores an alternative avenue to coherently frame the Court’s practice to overcome certain problematic distributive outcomes that derive from the prevailing approach. The suggested alternative is a regime of positive duties intended to ensure an adequate standard of living after widespread violence.