This post is a summary of two articles. The first with the title above was published at http://unchronicle.un.org/issues/2012/ on December 2012 in the magazine with the title of, " Delivering Justice" and was written by Navanethem Pillay. The second was published on February 1997,was written by Juan Mendez http://userpages.umbc.edu/~simpson/Human%20Rights/articles/Mendez,%20Accountability
Understanding the patterns of past human rights violations and ending impunity for the worst violations are indispensable for successful transformative processes. At the core of any effort to establish accountability are three interlinked rights: the right to truth, the right to justice, and the right to effective reparation. In order to implement these rights, a comprehensive strategy is required that involves governments and civil society. Violations of human rights undermine the fabric of entire societies.They can destabilize whole regions. In the aftermath of such terrible events, it is essencial to establish the truth. Knowing the truth allows victims to gain a sense of closure and restore a measure of dignity. Justice is the indispensable companion of truth. Accountability for crimes and violations, including individual accountability under criminal law, is key to reinstate public trust in justice. At the same time, we need to pay more attention to the victims. Everyone is aware of the tremendous physical, psychological and material price victims pay. However, efforts to end impunity have, unfortunately, not been accompanied by equally strong efforts to address the plight of victims. There is a clear need to rectify this imbalance so that victims can obtain effective reparation for the harm they suffered. Today, no state can feign ignorance about the extent and causes of violations committed under it watch. This applies even if its own institutions do not pick up such violations, as they should. There is hardly a gross violations that is not documented by the United Nations and our 58 human rights field presence across the world. Experience shows that inadequate capacity within domestic institutions is often a key factor that perpetuates impunity for the perpetrators of crimes and violations. Our study concluded that true accountability can be achieve only if national inquiry mechanisms are independent, impartial and transparent. Central to any effective investigation and prosecution is a successful witness protection programme that, if necessary, may also include international assistance to get witness out of harm`s way. Capacity and knowledge on their own will not suffice where a government lacks the political commitment to hold perpetrators of human rights violations accountable. The type of volatile political situations that ensure after human rights violations are committed often mean that national advocates for accountability run serious political, if not physical risks. It is therefore, important that the international community support domestic accountability efforts. However, where national authorities fail to fulfil their responsability to punish those responsible for human rights violations, international and hybrid tribunals, have played an important role in closing the accountability gap. Accountability for human rights violations constitutes a central plank of the contemporary human rights agenda. Today, the question is no longer whether to ensure accountability but when and how this is best achieved.
In only a few years the international community has made considerable progress toward the recognition that a legacy of grave and systematic violations generates obligations that the state owes to the victims and to society. The accountability problem has legal, ethical and political dimensions, and it is imperative to recognize and tackle all the three. The multiplicity of dimensions has changed the way human rights organizations conceive their work and how they work to promote and defend fundamental freedoms. The measuring stick of true commitment to democracy is the degree to which governments are willing to organize its apparatus and structures through which public power is exercised, so that they are capable of ensuring the full enjoyment of human rights. Proponents of accountability have gained a lot of ground in the last twelve years, The theme is firmly established in the agenda of all major challenges of our time. As in the past, it is not enough to insist on moral principles. The international community must acknowledge the political constraints while insisting that everyone look at them objectively. The most important point is not so much to impose a set of obligations upon leaders, but to find the means by which the international community supports the efforts made by some of those leaders and by organizations of civil society to achieve accountability. It is also time to review the theoretical framework under which the international community has discussed these issues.
