Abstract
Victims of crimes, victims of abuse of power and victims of gross and systematic human rights violations have had little relevance to international law. However, since 1985, international human rights law has taken an interest in them and has created four instruments, which establish different notions of victim, as well as a catalogue of rights. Since then, victims have become increasingly prominent in processes involved in seeking justice, truth and reparation. Recently, victim’s testimonies are used as one of the indicators, although not the only one, for measuring compliance and protection of human rights rules in the United Nations system.
Highlights
According to Drapin (Drapin, 1974) as the State gradually took responsibility for the administration of justice, any individual who broke the law became the main character of judicial strata, leaving the victims in the background and even consigned to oblivion.Since states had the upper hand in this regard, international law paid little attention to the victims
The third reason is the emergence of a new legal discipline, namely victimology, which has given the victims of crime an increasingly active role both in criminal law and in international human rights law
According to the OHCHR, events-based data are obtained from testimonies of victims or witnesses; information provided by the media and reports of states, civil society organisations, national human rights institutions, and international human rights monitoring mechanisms
Summary
According to Drapin (Drapin, 1974) as the State gradually took responsibility for the administration of justice, any individual who broke the law became the main character of judicial strata, leaving the victims in the background and even consigned to oblivion. 'Victims' means persons who, individually or collectively, have suffered harm, including physical or mental injury, emotional suffering, economic loss or substantial impairment of their fundamental rights, through acts or omissions that do not yet constitute violations of national criminal laws but of internationally recognised rules relating to human rights. In light of the above instruments, there are several types of victims, namely victims of crimes, victims of abuse of power, victims of gross violations of international human rights standards and victims of serious breaches of international humanitarian law This group includes the characteristics of the term ‘victim’, that is, persons who directly or indirectly (family members or people who have suffered harm when helping a victim) have faced an unlawful act (offence, crime, violation of an international obligation) either individually or collectively by the action or omission of states; or of an individual or groups of individuals. This definition cannot be interpreted to include legal persons in any manner or at any time (Burgorgue-Larsen, 2003, p. 14)
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