THE MAGNITUDE AND MULTITUDE OF GROSS HUMAN RIGHTS ABUSES

This book must start with a confession and an apology.

First the confession. A work such as this is not able to do justice to a topic as broad as that set out in the title i.e. reparations for gross human rights abuses. The main focus of this book, the central shocking social fact which gives rise to all the nuanced legal and political debates discussed in this work, is that human beings are capable of treating other human beings with unspeakable cruelty. If this book has a heart, it lies in the recognition of the fact that both ancient and recent human history is littered with examples of widespread and gross violations of human rights. These violations, serious outrages to humanity, continue in places such as Darfur in the Sudan, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and Iraq, even as this work is being written. The sheer extent of the past and present abuses of human rights makes it impossible for the topic of reparations for such abuses to be dealt with in one short book.

Then the apology. This book is an eclectic mix of perspectives, dealing with a range of specific widespread abuses, which occurred at different times in various parts of the world. Because of the nature of the book, it deals with gross human rights abuses in a highly selective and somewhat arbitrary manner. And because this work deals selectively with only a small fraction of the wide range of gross human rights abuses which have taken place during the relatively recent past it is appropriate that an apology be offered at this early stage of the book. The reader should not lose sight of the broader picture of human suffering captured in the phrase ‘gross human rights abuses’. As Michael Osborne (whose chapter on reparations for apartheid is included in this book at pages 231-293) writes: ‘Fundamental human rights continue to be violated with impunity almost everywhere. The human rights revolution is not just unfinished. In a sense, it has yet to attain material reality’.