A/HRC/34/62
Recommendations
96.
The Special Rapporteur encourages the United Nations system as well as other
relevant stakeholders, including mediating agencies, international cooperation
agencies and academic institutions and other relevant civil society organizations, to
place sufficient emphasis on the comparative analysis of experiences with victim
participation to close the gaping hole in the study of transitional justice processes.
97.
Similarly, the Special Rapporteur urges those responsible for the design of
transitional justice measures not to think of victim participation as marginal, but to
incorporate it as an essential element of transitional justice policy-making. Doing so
should have an impact on the calendar of transitional justice measures, their staffing,
outreach, implementation and monitoring.
98.
Regarding the three preconditions for success analysed in the present report,
the Special Rapporteur cannot be more emphatic in his call to all Member States and
all relevant parties to a conflict to guarantee the security of those who have not only
already been victimized, but who are willing to make the extraordinary effort, almost
invariably at high cost to themselves and their families, to contribute to the success of
transitional justice measures. Post-conflict countries such as Colombia and Sri Lanka
must be particularly attentive to this issue, as do countries like Argentina, where a
witness who provided crucial testimony in a criminal trial disappeared in 2006, as well
as countries that have never instituted transitional justice measures despite violations
that would justify their doing so and where civil space for such discussions has been
closed, including through the use of intimidation and threats.
99.
The Special Rapporteur urges much more systematic attention (academic,
practical, financial, etc.) to the issue of psychosocial support to victims. This needs to
go far beyond the rather basic and immediate forms of support offered around
instances of participation (such as in hearings, public or private, of truth commissions
or in criminal justice processes). Victims are owed much more robust and long-term
support; social integration ultimately cannot take place without it, and participation
on an equal footing depends on it. Very few countries have established such
programmes on a sufficiently large scale. This is a failure that is seldom noticed, but
one that condemns victims to some degree of suffering from which they could be
spared, communities to divisions that could be partly healed, and transitional justice
measures to alienation from participants that could make them more effective and
more legitimate.
100. The Special Rapporteur urges all relevant stakeholders to invest greater efforts
in the design of capacity-building programmes for victims and other potential
participants in transitional justice measures. The full potential of participatory
methods will be realized only when victims in particular are empowered to participate
at all levels in the design, implementation and monitoring of these measures, in an
ongoing manner rather than in single events.
101. The Special Rapporteur also urges all relevant stakeholders to pay particular
attention to the design of participatory methods that could elicit greater participation
on the part of women, including female victims, and other frequently victimized and
marginalized groups.
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