An Emerging Norma: The Duty of States to Provide Reparations for Human Rights Violations by Non-State Actors

An international norm is emerging whereby States, in certain circumstances, have a legal duty to provide reparations for violations committed by non-State actors. The reparations programs designed by truth and reconciliation commissions form the most recent and striking evidence this norm\u27s emergence. In particular, the governments of both Peru and Sierra Leone have adopted the recommendations made by their respective truth commissions regarding the provision of reparations to victims, regardless of the status of the perpetrators. While this emerging norm has a basis in certain international human rights treaties as well as in the jurisprudence of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, it goes beyond the principles and guidelines that were adopted by the U.N. General Assembly on the subject of remedies and reparations. In addition, the emergence of this norm has been somewhat halting because of the generally unsatisfactory implementation of reparations programs that provide benefits to victims of violations committed by non-State actors