Statement of Goals and Recommendations (updated 2012)
In the following article, Dr Yael Danieli summarises the necessary components for healing in the wake of massive trauma. Emerged from interviews with survivors of the Nazi Holocaust, Japanese and Armenian Americans, victims from Argentina and Chile, and professionals working with them, both in and outside their countries, these components are presented as goals and recommendations, organised from the (A) individual, (B) societal, (C) national, and (D) international perspectives, as follows:
A. Reestablishment of the victims' equality of value, power, esteem (dignity), the basis of reparation in the society or nation.
This is accomplished by:
a. compensation, both real and symbolic;
b. restitution;
c. rehabilitation;
d. commemoration.
B. Relieving the victim's stigmatisation and separation from society.
This is accomplished by:
a. commemoration;
b. memorials to heroism;
c. empowerment;
d. education, on all levels and media.
C. Repairing the nations' ability to provide and maintain equal value under law and the provisions of justice.
This is accomplished by:
a. prosecution;
b. genuine apology;
c. establishing national secure public records;
d. education, on all levels and media;
e. creating national mechanisms for monitoring, conflict resolution and preventive interventions.
D. Asserting the commitment of the international community to combat impunity and provide and maintain equal value under law and the provisions of justice and redress.
This is accomplished by:
a. creating and utilising ad hoc and permanent mechanisms for prosecution (e.g., ad hoc Tribunals, the International Criminal Court);
b. establishing international secure public records;
c. education, on all levels and media;
d. creating international mechanisms for monitoring, conflict resolution and preventive interventions.
It is important to emphasize that this comprehensive framework, rather than presenting alternative means of reparation, sets out necessary complementary elements, all of which are needed to be applied in different weights, in different situations, cultures and context, and at different points in time. It is also essential that victims/survivors participate in the choice of the reparation measures adopted for them. While justice is crucially one of the healing agents, it does not replace the other psychological and social elements necessary for recovery. It is thus a necessary, but not a sufficient condition for healing. Moreover, the different elements must be applied to transitional or alternative justice mech¬anisms such as truth commissions.
* This text was originally published in T.C. van Boven, C. Flinterman, F. Grunfeld & I. Westendorp (Eds.) ‘The Right to Restitution, Compensation and Rehabilitation for Victims of Gross Violations of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms.’ (Netherlands Institute of Human Rights, 1992), Special Issue No. 12 (pp. 196-213). Also published in N.J. Kritz (Ed.) ‘Transitional Justice: How Emerging Democracies Reckon with Former Regimes.’ Vol. 1, (pp. 572-582). (Washington, D.C.: United States Institute of Peace, 1995). An updated version, ‘Justice and Reparation: Steps in the Process of Healing’ appeared in C.C. Joyner (Ed.), ‘Reining in Impunity for International Crimes and Serious Violations of Fundamental Human Rights: Proceedings of the Siracusa Conference 17-21 September 1998.’ (International Review of Penal Law, 1998), Vol. 14, (pp. 303-312).
Dr Yael Danieli (www.dryaeldanieli.com) is a clinical psychologist, traumatologist, victimologist and psychohistorian. Having developed the first program to help Nazi Holocaust Survivors and their Children in the 1970s, she has devoted much of her career to studying, treating, writing about, and preventing lifelong and multigenerational impacts of massive trauma worldwide, to ensuring victims’ rights, the rights of future generations, and to reparative justice.
In the last two decades Dr Danieli created the Danieli Inventory – the gold measure to (comparatively) assessing intergenerational legacies of Trauma and founded the International Center for MultiGenerational Legacies of Trauma (www.ICMGLT.org).
As a victimologist, she has spent over four decades participating in drafting, adopting, implementing victims' rights, and ensuring that victims’ rights reach the victims.