Reparations Regime in International Law

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The West Bengal National University of Juridical Sciences, Kolkata | Reparations Regime in International Law | A Public International Law Project | | Rohan Kothari3rd year210001 | | This project follows the NUJS citation standard | I. INTRODUCTION The term ‘Reparation’ derives from the word ‘repair’, which means to make amends. The entire theory of reparation in international law is based on this very basic guideline. Reparation is a remedy used in International Law, by international tribunals such as the International Court of Justice, for countries which are a part of the United Nations. When a case goes to the International Court of Justice for a trial it must first find if the accused nation has a ‘wrongful act’. In 1961 Justice Guha Roy wrote: “That a wrong done to an individual must be released by the offender himself or by someone else against whom the sanction of the community may be directed is one of those timeless axioms of justice without which social life is unthinkable”. The basic principle with regard to reparation, or the remedying of a breach of an international obligation for which the state concerned is responsible, was laid down in the Chorz´ow Factory case, where the Permanent Court of International Justice emphasised that, “The essential principle contained in the actual notion of an illegal act is that reparation must, as far as possible, wipe out all the consequences of the illegal act and re-establish the situation which would, in all probability, have existed if that act had not been committed.” Reparations for wrongful acts committed by members of the international community can take many forms, from restitution to monetary compensation. Despite restitution being the dominant form of reparations in the past, it is rarer today. This is primarily because the nature of disputes adjudicated before international tribunals
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