A/HRC/36/50/Add.1 on a time frame, at a cost and in a much more victim-friendly manner than any court procedure. The importance of “complexity” 3. 65. Normative guidance recognizes that, strictly speaking, it is impossible to fully repair the harms of gross and serious violations. Programmes that have, however, taken a complex approach to their mix of benefits have been more successful in achieving basic transitional justice goals such as recognizing victims and fostering a sense of citizenship — for example, by providing a mix of both material reparations such as payments and social benefits, and symbolic actions like memorials and apologies. Material reparations may take the form of compensation (payments in cash) or of service packages, which may in turn include provisions for education, health and housing. Symbolic reparations may include official apologies, the establishment of days of commemoration, the creation of museums or rehabilitation measures such as restoring the good name of victims. 45 E. Advances in guarantees of non-recurrence 66. Because the notion of “guarantees of non-recurrence” is seldom used outside United Nations circles (and in fact, even within the Organization, there are only a handful of documents that use the term), it may appear that this is a category around which there is not a lot of activity or progress. This would be a mistake. The Special Rapporteur has presented two reports on guarantees of non-recurrence and will therefore only highlight a few relevant points, the first one being that the most sensible interpretation of the concept is that it refers to a preventive function,46 and the problem with prevention is not that we do not know how to achieve it, but that our knowledge and our preventive programmes have traditionally been compartmentalized. 67. The concept of guarantees of non-recurrence made its first appearance in a United Nations document in 1993. 47 Since then it has received sporadic and uneven attention. There are two main strands of interpretation of the concept, one which takes it to be part of a proper interpretation of remedies, and the other as an entailment of the commitment to rights. 68. The General Assembly, in its resolution 60/147 adopting the Basic Principles and Guidelines on the Right to a Remedy and Reparations for the Victims of Gross Violations of Human Rights Law and Serious Violations of International Humanitarian Law, espoused the first position, that guarantees of non-recurrence are one of the forms of reparation (remedy) to which victims are entitled. 69. The second position has been defended by the Human Rights Committee in arguing that the purposes of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights “would be defeated without an obligation integral to article 2 to take measures to prevent a recurrence of a violation of the Covenant. Accordingly, it has been a frequent practice of the Committee … to include … the need for measures, beyond a victim-specific remedy, to be taken to avoid recurrence of the type of violation in question”.48 This same line has been taken by regional and national courts, which have expanded the scope of the guarantees significantly. Whereas the “foundational” documents gave content to the concept largely by reference to what we would now call aspects of security sector reform, national and regional courts have used the concept to require States to take steps including measures intended to preserve the victims’ memory, to reform legislation and the constitution, and to adopt educational initiatives. 49 In its landmark Velásquez-Rodríguez decision, the InterAmerican Court of Human Rights argues that States are obliged “to organize the 45 46 47 48 49 14 A/69/518. A/HRC/30/42 and A/70/438. See E/CN.4/Sub.2/1993/8, paras. 47-48 and 55, and chapter IX, general principle 11. See CCPR/C/21/Rev.1/Add.13, para. 17. A/HRC/30/42 and María Carmelina Londoño Lázaro, Las Garantías de no Repetición en la Jurisprudencia Interamericana (Tirant Lo Blanch, 2014).