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FriEnt/KOFF Workshop Reportmisunderstandings and high hopes of outcomes that would not even be withinthe scope of tribunal procedure.However, there is no “follow-up procedure” with a more intensive interactionbetween prosecution lawyers, VWS and the witnesses after their testimony. Oftenvictims need counselling after having giving their testimony, but this is notnecessarily provided. Also, while particularly victim-oriented mechanisms likeproperty restitution are foreseen in the Statute of the ICTY, they have not beenapplied until today.The ICC: A victims’ courtAt the ICC victims play a more important role. They have the right to participatein the proceedings and could make presentations to the court if their personalinterests are affected (see Art. 68.3 ICC Statute). Victims, or victims' groups, aregranted the right to a legal representative. Moreover reparations can be grantedto victims, to be paid from the ICC Trust Fund. There are, however, problemswith this approach in that it generates high expectations about a better futureand monetary incentives on the side of the victims that cannot be fulfilled. At thesame time, the determination of victims can be very time-consuming.What does this mean in practice?• Even when taking victims and their needs and interests into considerationcourts stay profoundly “perpetrator”-oriented in that a due process of law forthe accused is at the centre of concern. However, if a court succeeds inproperly establishing the facts about “who did it” this in itself contributes tofulfilling part of the victims’ needs.• Other mechanisms of transitional justice may then be able to take intoconsideration victims’ further needs, like the need to “tell the story” or toreceive reparations. To take these over by courts would mean overloadingthis particular mechanism.• However, efforts to consider victims as such in court could still be consideredin the procedures of the courts and should be further developed wherepossible. The tribunals’ efforts to this effect are appreciated by victims,according to a survey done on ICTY.3.2. The Right to Know: Victims, perpetrators and hierachies ofpain and responsibility in Northern IrelandAs we have seen in the first section the right to know focuses on victims: theyhave to know what happened to their loved ones, but also who the perpetratorswere and – last but not least - who may be considered a victim, after all.Marie Breen Smyth, Director of the Centre for the Study of Radicalisation andContemporary Political Violence (CSRV) at Aberystwyth University, Wales,presented results of the “Cost of the Troubles Study” (COTT), a very particularinitiative of truth finding in Northern Ireland that also brings into relief the muchdiscussed political connotations of victim/perpetrator definitions.It is a study on the effects of the Troubles on the population in Northern Ireland,conducted in the years 1996-2001 and is based on principles of participatoryaction research. It brought together victims from all groups and compiled data onall those killed from 1969 to date. The aim of the study was to put victims on the8
FriEnt/KOFF Workshop Reportpolitical agenda during the peace process and raise public awareness of the issueof victim and perpetrator definitions.Political definition of victims and their hierarchyIt turned out – not surprisingly - that the ascription of victim identity in NorthernIreland is also part of the conflict and, in fact, a matter of political contest alongthe lines of division. The contests over the definition of victimhood can almost beseen as a ‘war by other means’. Thus some victims become icons of grievance fortheir entire community and by association with these victims politicians bringunassailable moral authority to their own cause. In the same vein,differentiations have been proposed between “innocent victims” versus “terroristvictims”.Northern Ireland’s system of compensation and reparation, moreover, leads to ahierarchy of victims. The financial compensation scheme excludes anyone withany kind of previous conviction, including driving offences. At the same time, itawards higher compensation to police officers and their families than to anyoneelse and more compensation to army personnel and their families than tocivilians.Truth recoveryThe contests between different groups of victims preclude the possibility of anycoherent truth recovery process that is exclusively victim-led. Rather, the studysuggests, it should be the responsibility of the wider society to set theparameters of truth recovery which should then be victim-centred, i.e. victims’concerns and participation should be central to any truth recovery process.Eventually, truth recovery processes in themselves are less in particular forvictims but rather for society. The international community could also play animportant role in witnessing and adjudicating such processes.On the other hand, in the current system, the onus for seeking truth and justicelargely falls on victims and the human rights organisations that represent theirinterests. The extreme challenges linked to truth finding and justice seekingprocesses impact on the well-being of victims, and those who undertake themammoth task of campaigning for justice and acknowledgement often pay aheavy price emotionally, socially, healthwise and economically.The study also concludes that in a process of truth seeking which comprisesdifferent groups of victims as in Northern Ireland, there is a fine line betweenexclusionist approaches to the definition of victims and setting up a moralequivalence between victims and perpetrators. It further realised that one of thechallenges for a sincere truth recovery process that eventually contributes toovercoming lines of conflict and consolidation of a new social solidarity is theculture of blame. It denies all responsibility for the wrongs of the past andallocates it to the ‘other’. Similarly, the competition between the variousprotagonists to claim the largest amount of victimisation and to deny thevictimisation of the other prevents a more restorative approach. Unfortunately,some individual victims and some victims’ groups in Northern Ireland arevociferous in their participation in the culture of blame and denial of the sufferingof others.9
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