A/HRC/34/62 83. The participation of victims in transitional justice measures always provides a poignant reminder of the fact that the choices necessary for the adoption of an effective and sustainable transitional justice policy are not merely technical in nature, but are intended to both manifest and sustain the dignity and worth of all concerned. In this respect, transitional justice is not merely an exercise in institutional design. Given the increased professionalization and standardization of the field, it is always good to be reminded of this. The presence of victims, their narratives of pain and loss but also of endurance, offers this indispensable reminder, and is an important source of motivation to adopt redress and prevention measures, as has been shown again and again in all cases where transitional justice has been adopted. V. Conclusions and recommendations 84. The present report and the report to the General Assembly focusing on national consultation processes emphasize the importance of broad participation in transitional justice measures, including by victims. They are intended as contributions to clarifying the rhetoric of transitional justice and matching it in practice. 85. Although, as both reports have demonstrated, there are significant experiences of both national consultations and of victim participation, one of the things that is missing is greater efforts to analyse those experiences from a comparative perspective, with an eye to greater clarity regarding challenges and conditions for success. 86. The Special Rapporteur will not attempt to summarize the contents of the report in this section. In brief, however, he provides evidence of solid legal backing for the participation of victims in all stages of the design, implementation and monitoring of each of the transitional justice measures — truth commissions, criminal justice processes and reparation programmes — and security sector reform, one dimension of guarantees of non-recurrence. 87. He provides examples of the indispensable contributions by victims to the operation of truth commissions, which, after all, depend almost entirely on the willingness of victims to provide testimony; he refers to the strides made by the International Criminal Court and the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia, and to the contributions of victims in other national jurisdictions, through mechanisms such as private prosecutions, to the achievement of justice; he cites the great importance of making sure that reparation programmes provide benefits that fit the victims’ understanding of adequate redress and, perhaps most surprisingly, he describes the contributions that the participation of victims can make to processes of security sector reform, which have not been particularly victim-friendly heretofore. 88. The Special Rapporteur distinguishes between two broadly different types of arguments that can be used to justify victim participation. The first type is epistemic, and concentrates on the contributions that victims can make to the quality of information on the basis of which transitional justice measures can be designed, operated and monitored. Victims not only have a privileged perspective on the ways in which systems and institutions that were meant to guarantee their rights failed to do so, but also on what constitutes effective redress in terms of truth, criminal justice, reparation and guarantees of non-recurrence. 89. Having said this, the Special Rapporteur has no interest in treating victim participation as if it were a silver bullet, or an uncomplicated endeavour. Hence, he warns first that participation in transitional justice measures can involve security risks for victims, social risks, economic costs and risks of retraumatization, among others. 20