Reparations During Armed Conflict

War causes devastation, death, and disability to civilians and combatants alike. The International Committee of the Red Cross has found that, over the past decade, conflicts have tripled to over 100 with an average in-country mission length of 42-years. Although reparations are one of the legal obligations on States (and non-state actors), historically these were often not implemented until after hostilities have ceased.

Instead, we will examine the provision of reparations during conflict. Drawing on the findings of our original project, 'Reparations, Responsibility and Victimhood in Transitional Societies (RRV)', we will bridge the gap between the post-conflict experience of reparations, the emerging literature on war torts, and the practice of militaries of using money to harmed civilians during wartime.

Given the increase in conflicts and their length, this issue is extremely pertinent. In the past year, American and Dutch militaries have outlined policy changes to mitigate harm to civilians during hostilities including compensation, but many countries - including the UK - still lack reparation programmes for civilian harm. Problems consistent with all forms of compensation during armed conflict include a lack of transparency, accountability, and protection of civilian rights.

Such is the case with 'condolence payments': ad-hoc payments to harmed civilians made on an ex-gratia basis of not recognising any liability of those responsible. To address this, scholars (Abraham, Crootof) have proposed 'war torts' that would allow harmed civilians to claim against those factually responsible without imposing liability - regardless of it amounting to wrongdoing under the laws of war.

Reparations, in contrast, are victim-centred mechanisms that protect individuals' procedural and substantive rights to an effective remedy after a legal violation. These represent an effort to redress victims' harm and prevent its recurrence in the future. However, most reparations mechanism only deal with civilians as victims.

Harmed soldiers are often left out of such debates - and left reliant on pensions which may not adequately remedy their harm. This project addresses this gap by informing UK policy in this area, and by developing international guidelines on best practices from the interaction of these concepts. Our partner organisation, Ceasefire, has called for a reparation mechanism for British military operations that cause civilian harm.

We wish to use this project to flesh out how this would look in more detail, and as a model legislative bill.

Our findings from the RRV project are central to this policy agenda. Our team is led by the previous PI of the project (Moffett), and brings together a new group of researchers working in this field. Ceasefire, meanwhile, is to the forefront of work advancing the rights and reparations of civilians harmed in armed conflict.

The organisation has written extensively on improving UK practice on respecting civilians' rights in armed conflict, calling on the UK government to establish reparation schemes for civilians harmed in military operations. Building on RRV's findings, we will shed new light on this area, engaging with new stakeholders to effect meaningful change in the understanding and application of reparations during conflict.