Inaug.-Diss.--Heidelberg. / Vita. Bibliography: p. 197-210.

This paper attempts to offer a group-based approach to reparations for slavery. I argue that by appealing to a group-based approach to reparations, one can avoid some of the significant problems associated with attempting to justify reparations on an individual level. I argue that, properly formulated, a group-based approach can avoid problems of identification, the non-identity problem, as well as misgivings about appealing to the notion that groups can have a moral standing that is not merely the aggregation of the moral standing of the individual group members. In order to show that a group-based approach is a viable solution to these issues, I appeal to Larry May’s account of groups.

The Royal Commission on Japanese Claims (1947-1951), known as the “Bird Commission,” investigated and offered compensation to Japanese Canadians for their losses of property during the 1940s. It is largely remembered for what it was not: that is, it was not a just resolution to the devastating material losses of the 1940s. Community histories bitterly describe the Commission as destined to failure, with narrow terms of reference that only addressed a fraction of what was taken. Similarly, other historians have portrayed the Commission as a defensive mechanism, intended by the government to limit financial compensation and to avoid the admission of greater injustice. Yet scholars have never fully investigated the internal workings of the Commission. Despite its failings, Japanese Canadians used the Bird Commission in their struggle to hold the state accountable. Hundreds of Japanese Canadians presented claims. Their testimonies are preserved in thousands of pages of archival documents. The Bird Commission was a troubling, flawed, but nonetheless important historical process. This thesis examines government documents, claimants’ case files, and oral histories to nuance previous accounts of the Bird Commission. I draw from ‘productive’ understandings of Royal Commissions to argue that the Liberal government, cognizant of how such mechanisms could influence public opinion, designed the Bird Commission to provide closure to the internment-era and to mark the start of the postwar period. Their particular definition of loss was integral to this project. As Japanese Canadians sought to expand this definition to address their losses, the proceedings became a record of contest over the meaning of property loss and the legacy of the dispossession. Navigating a web of constraints, Japanese Canadians participated in a broader debate over the meaning justice in a society that sought to distance itself from a legacy of racialized discrimination. This contest, captured in the Commission proceedings, provides a pathway into the complex history of the postwar years as Canadians grappled with the racism of Second World War, including Canada’s own race-based policies, and looked towards new approaches to pluralism. / Graduate / 2018-12-22

<p>History is regrettably replete with wars and dictatorial regimes that claimed the lives of millions of people. Most of the time the planners were not held accountable for their misdeeds. Fortunately in recent years the idea of people being prosecuted for mass atrocities was launched and debated. The purpose of this study was to propose avenues for promoting respect for victims rights. It examined the rationale of the victims reparation, its evolution, its denial and its rebirth. It canvass victims rights in domestic law especially in the civil law in comparison with international law. It proposed means whereby the international community may better address the issue of victims rights.</p>

<p>History is regrettably replete with wars and dictatorial regimes that claimed the lives of millions of people. Most of the time the planners were not held accountable for their misdeeds. Fortunately in recent years the idea of people being prosecuted for mass atrocities was launched and debated. The purpose of this study was to propose avenues for promoting respect for victims rights. It examined the rationale of the victims reparation, its evolution, its denial and its rebirth. It canvass victims rights in domestic law especially in the civil law in comparison with international law. It proposed means whereby the international community may better address the issue of victims rights.</p>

Thesis (doctoral), Universität, Düsseldorf, 2006. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 245-257).

Thesis (doctoral), Universität, Düsseldorf, 2006. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 245-257).

The unresolved long-term effects of slavery and past and ongoing systemic racism directed toward Black Americans can be seen in the devaluing and aggressively racist treatment of Black students in Los Angeles County schools. Through qualitative interviews with Black education community members in Los Angeles County, this study collected Black education community members’ perspectives on the need for a multiphase education reparations system for Black youth, beginning with early learners (ages 0 to 8), and what components such a system should include. Participants overwhelmingly supported an education reparations system due to the over-policing and criminalization of Black students and the history of racist and unjust policies and inequitable education; participants suggested multiple components of a potential education reparations system that can be grouped as student supports, family supports, educational resources, and societal and policy reforms. The study concludes with a proposal for introducing an education reparations system in Los Angeles County led by Black community leaders and grounded in community outreach and ongoing organizing.

The author attended Independent Assessment Process (IAP) hearings as part of the Indian Residential Schools Settlement Agreement. Her experience in IAP hearings raised questions about our approach, as Canadians, to historical wrongs, especially those, like loss of language and culture, which fall outside of the purview of criminal and tort-law. This thesis explores the legal, social, and political dispute resolution mechanisms available in Canada to address harms as they have been applied to the Indian Residential Schools Legacy. It finds that the approach to date has been limited by the assumptions inherent in those institutions. The author proposes that Canadians, as a society, need to reframe and restart our discussion about harms and reparations using a framework of “responsibility”, and provides some possible mechanisms to begin that discussion. / Graduate / mhough@uvic.ca

Ce travail explore l'impact des réparations sur les groupes en se concentrant sur la question du temps. Les distinctions opérées par Paul Ricœur entre temps objectif, temps raconté et temps perçu permettent de circonscrire avec précision le champ d'action des réparations : elles sont des vecteurs de reconnaissance caractérisés par leur pouvoir de reformulation du passé. Pour démontrer cela, l'étude s'appuie sur le cas des réparations allemandes à Israël et à la Claims Conference de 1950 à 1990. Ce cas est interprété dans le but de comprendre ce qui a motivé ces gestes, et aussi en vue de justifier le principe des réparations en général : il adopte une méthode herméneutique critique. Les réparations allemandes sont d'abord liées aux théories de la reconnaissance. Les revendications des victimes sont interprétées comme une lutte pour la reconnaissance, les réactions des offenseurs comme un parcours vers la reconnaissance de responsabilité. Le fonctionnement de la reconnaissance est ensuite précisé par une étude des formes qu'elle revêt au fil du temps. Les années 1950 sont celles de la justice civile, c'est-à-dire des réparations monétaires. Ce mode de reconnaissance se caractérise par une façon elliptique de raconter les événements. Dans les années 1960, la justice pénale prend le relais et propose un récit plus concret du passé à travers les témoignages et les verdicts. Dans les années 1970 et 1980, ce sont les gestes symboliques, de nature essentiellement narrative, qui prédominent. En fait, chaque mode de reconnaissance présente une façon distincte de raconter le passé et modifie la perception du temps. Ce pouvoir de reformulation constitue une réplique à l'irréparable. / This thesis explores the impact reparations have on groups by focusing on the question of time. It applies Paul Ricoeur's distinctions made between objective, narrated and perceived time. Thus it can show that reparations function as the primary vehicle for recognition due to their rephrasing power. Though they cannot undo the irreparable, they are capable to change the narrative about the past. The case study chosen to prove this point are the German reparations to Israel and to the Claims Conference from 1950 to 1990. The method applied is critical hermeneutics, so the case is not only interpreted in order to understand the motivations for these very reparations but also to justify the principal of reparations in general. The German reparations are first related to the theories of recognition. The claims of the victims are identified as a struggle for recognition, while the reactions of the perpetrators are described as a journey towards the recognition of responsibility. Then the functioning of recognition is specified through a detailed study of the different forms that reparations have taken over time. The 1950s were the years of civil justice, i.e. of monetary reparations. This form of recognition was characterized by an elliptic way of telling the events. In the 1960s, criminal justice took the place, and made a more specific narration of the past possible thanks to the testimonies and verdicts. In the 1970s and 1980s, symbolic acts, essentially narrative, predominated. To sum up, each form of recognition constitutes its distinct mode of telling the past and modifies as a consequence the perception of time. This power to reformulate is an answer to the irreparable.