International Center for Transitional Justice After torture U.S. Accountability and the Right to Redress Lisa Magarrell, Lorna Peterson August 2010 Serious human rights TORTURE violations give rise to a legal obligation to EXTRAORDINARY RENDITION provide a remedy, and a remedy should be CRUEL TREATMENT provided to all victims. International Center for Transitional Justice After torture U.S. Accountability and the Right to Redress August 2010 Lisa Magarrell, Lorna Peterson International Center After Torture for Transitional Justice U.S. Accountability and the Right to Redress About the Authors Lisa Magarrell heads ICTJ’s U.S. Accountability Project and is the director of ICTJ’s Program Office. Since joining ICTJ in 2001 she has worked on truth commission processes, repara- tions, and other justice and accountability issues around the world. A human rights lawyer with extensive experience in migrant worker and refugee rights, wartime documentation of human rights abuses, peace processes, and justice for human rights victims in complex contexts, Magarrell has consulted and written widely on reparations, including Memories of an Unfinished Process—Reparations in the Peruvian Transition, which she co-authored. She has law degrees from the University of Iowa (1979), National University of El Salvador (1994), and Columbia University (LLM 2001). Lorna Peterson is a law fellow with the U.S. Accountability Project. She came to ICTJ from the private law firm of Simpson Thacher & Bartlett, LLP, where she worked with the project on a pro bono basis. Her previous experience includes work with Law Center for Families, a legal aid organization in Oakland; the San Francisco Public Defenders; Legal Momentum; and CUSH, a local Liberian community organization. She graduated from Berkeley Law School in 2008. International Center After Torture for Transitional Justice U.S. Accountability and the Right to Redress Acknowledgments The authors would like to thank ICTJ’s senior project consultant, Carolyn Patty Blum, for her valuable input on this project, as well as for her work in collaboration with pro bono attorney Scott Roehm of Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe, LLP, on the issue of civil liability. We thank law fellow Mary Hansel for her research support. ICTJ’s Ruben Carranza, Cristian Correa, Pablo de Greiff, and Hanny Megally read and provided comments on earlier drafts. Jonathan Tracy of the National Institute of Military Justice (NIMJ) provided helpful input on the Foreign Claims Act, and Jayne Huckerby of New York University Law School’s Center for Human Rights and Global Justice (CHRGJ) and several other colleagues outside of ICTJ read and generously provided insights and comments on an early draft of this document. We also thank the Foundation to Promote Open Society (FPOS) whose support of ICTJ’s U.S. Account- ability Project made the research and publication of this paper possible. We note that the individuals and institutions acknowledged here are not responsible for—or necessarily in agreement with—the contents of the final paper. International Center After Torture for Transitional Justice U.S. Accountability and the Right to Redress About ICtJ The International Center for Transitional Justice works to redress and prevent the most severe violations of human rights by confronting legacies of mass abuse. ICTJ seeks holistic solutions to promote accountability and create just and peaceful societies. For more infor- mation, go to www.ictj.org. About the u.S. Accountability Project The U.S. Accountability Project develops realistic policy options for addressing the serious and systematic violations of human rights incurred through U.S. counterterrorism opera- tions after September 2001. It makes informed analysis and technical assistance available to advocates and policymakers on accountability issues. In undertaking this work, the project applies ICTJ’s in-depth international experience and draws comparative lessons appropriate to the U.S. context. For more information, go to www.ictj.org/en/where/region2/2260.html. ISBN: 978-1-936064-05-2 © International Center for Transitional Justice 2010. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without full attribution. International Center After Torture for Transitional Justice U.S. Accountability and the Right to Redress CoNteNtS Executive Summary ..............................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................3 1. Introduction ...........................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................5 2. The right and Duty: relevant Law and Practice ............................................................................................................................................................................................. .8 The.Source.of.the.Right.and.Obligation.............................................................................................................................................................................................................................................8 Giving.Meaning.to.the.Obligation.................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................9 Legal.Considerations.in.Reparations.Policy............................................................................................................................................................................................................................ .10 3. U.S. Practice and Precedent ......................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................... .12 Civil.Claims.in.U.S..Courts................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................... .12 Foreign.Claims.Act.................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................. .14 Lessons.from.Japanese.Internment........................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................... .16 4. Terms of redress .....................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................18 Redress.for.Violations.and.Harms............................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................. .19 Physical and Psychological Harms ..................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................... .19 Continuing Legal, Economic, and Social Consequences ............................................................................................................................................................................ .20 Types.of.Appropriate.Redress.............................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................. .21 Compensation ........................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................ .21 Restitution .................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................... .22 Rehabilitation .......................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................