The forgotten lessons of negotiated redress: Wassenaar, the struggle for reparations, and human rights

Reparations for mass atrocities are now embodied as a right of victims in transitional justice and human rights law, whereas historically they were the privilege of states. However, this normative account overlooks the contested nature of reparations, which often require political compromise. These were hard-learned lessons from the Wassenaar negotiations, despite the lack of a legal precedent for victims’, or groups of survivors’, right to reparations from another state. At the same time, such negotiations were decried by some in Israel as a betrayal or cheapening of their suffering, underscoring the polemic issue of reparations. This chapter discusses the contested nature of reparations and the struggle victims and civil society face in negotiating redress for mass atrocities. It finds resonance in lessons learned from the Wassenaar negotiations that have been neglected in the literature on reparations, as well as in contemporary redress movements’ normative understanding of reparations. The chapter discusses the role of victims in the struggle for redress, the mobilization of claims, reparations negotiations, and their theory of change in seeking a satisfactory outcome.