A/HRC/42/45 victims. In situations of mass displacement, such as in Colombia or the Syrian Arab Republic, the number of victims can equate to 12 to 15 per cent of the total population. 6 36. States dealing with the consequences of conflict have inadequate or fragile State institutions to implement reparation programmes, 7 and their finances are often devastated. Furthermore, attributing responsibility for violations is more complex given that non-State actors have also committed atrocities. In such situations, corruption is often rampant and the distinction between victims and perpetrators can be blurred, as in the case of child soldiers. Furthermore, many of these States face poverty, discrimination and structural inequalities, which make it harder to deal with reparation for mass atrocities. Research indicates that weaker States are less likely to establish domestic reparation programmes. 8 Equally, if such programmes are ever set up, their implementation rate is low. 37. States transitioning from repression to democracy, such as Argentina or Chile, have been more successful in implementing domestic reparation programmes, 9 but as already indicated, the infrastructural and political conditions there were significantly different from those in States moving away from conflict, such as Liberia or Sierra Leone, or even in certain States moving away from repression, such as Iraq. A. International standards and jurisprudence underpinning domestic reparation programmes 38. The right to a remedy is an essential right in all human rights treaties. Remedies include the right of victims to claim that violations of their rights have taken place and to request reparation for the harm suffered. The Basic Principles and Guidelines on the Right to a Remedy and Reparation for Victims of Gross Violations of International Human Rights Law and Serious Violations of International Humanitarian Law10 and the updated Set of Principles for the protection and promotion of human rights through action to combat impunity, refer to domestic reparation programmes as effective remedies to provide reparation for mass atrocities.11 39. Under international human rights law, remedies must be adequate and effective to address the potential violations of the rights at stake. 12 Their content must be framed within the principle of “full reparation”. The Basic Principles and Guidelines reinforce this idea, indicating that the right to remedy should include “adequate, effective and prompt reparation”.13 However, they do not define these three terms in relation to reparation or domestic reparation programmes. 40. The updated Set of Principles stipulate that victims shall have access to a “readily available, prompt and effective remedy in the form of criminal, civil, administrative or disciplinary proceedings”, that reparation can be provided through domestic reparation programmes, and that such programmes can be funded by national or international sources. 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 6 Kathryn Sikkink et al., “Evaluation of integral reparations measures in Colombia: executive summary”, Carr Centre for Human Rights Policy and Harvard Humanitarian Initiative (October 2015), p. 3. Roger Duthie, “Introduction” in Roger Duthie and Paul Seils (eds.), Justice Mosaics: How Context Shapes Transitional Justice in Fractured Societies, International Center for Transitional Justice (2017), p. 11. Matiangai Sirleaf, “The truth about truth commissions: why they do not function optimally in postconflict societies”, Cardozo Law Review, vol. 35 (August 2014), pp. 2325–2328. Lars Waldorf, “Institutional gardening in unsettled times: transitional justice and institutional contexts”, in Roger Duthie and Paul Seils (eds.), Justice Mosaics: How Context Shapes Transitional Justice in Fractured Societies, International Center for Transitional Justice (2017), pp. 40–83. See General Assembly resolution 60/147, annex, para. 16. See E/CN.4/2005/102/Add.1, principle 32. Art. 13 of the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms (European Convention on Human Rights), art. 25 of the American Convention on Human Rights, and art. 2 (3) of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. See para. 11.