A House with Two Rooms - The Advocates for Human Rights

include suggestions for making the reparations program viable. The Advocates makes the following
recommendations:
• The TRC should provide general recommendations for a reparations program and specifically
recommend that an independent post-commission body be created to implement the
reparations program and manage the distribution of any reparations funds. 11
• The reparations program should utilize the definition of “victim” set forth in Article V of the
U.N. Basic Principles and Guidelines on Reparation. 12
• In addition to individual victims’ rights of access to justice, adequate provisions should also
be made to allow groups of victims to present collective claims for reparations and to receive
reparation collectively. 13
• Reparations should be in the form of restitution, compensation, rehabilitation, satisfaction,
and guarantees of non-repetition. 14
• Rehabilitation of victims should include the search for the whereabouts of the disappeared,
for the identities of the children abducted, and for the bodies of those killed. It should also
include assistance in the recovery, identification, and reburial of the bodies in accordance with
the expressed wishes of the victims or the cultural practices of the families and communities. 15
• Reparations should be proportional to the gravity of the violations and the harm suffered,
and should be made to victims regardless of whether the violations were committed by the
government forces or combatant groups. 16
• A reparations program should include a public awareness campaign to inform the public and
victims about the program and about how to access available funds and services that are part
of the program.
Family Tracing and Reunification
The central place of the family in Liberian life, and the scattering of families during the wars, was a
dominant theme in the TRC statements. The Government of Liberia has ratified the International
Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights, the
African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child, and Additional Protocol I to the Geneva
Conventions, and is therefore bound to the obligations set forth in them. Under these treaties, the
family is recognized as the “natural unit and basis of society” and is entitled to protection by the state. 17
Key components of the right to family under international law include the right to be informed of the
fate of missing relatives, 18 assistance with family tracing, and ultimately, with family reunification. 19
The African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child, Additional Protocol I, International
Committee of the Red Cross resolutions, and United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees
documents provide a guiding framework on family reunification. The Advocates recommends the
following:
406