Mass claims have historically allowed victims of wrongdoing on an extensive scale to be compensated for losses suffered. This insightful book surveys and evaluates both domestic and international mass claims processes, delineating their successes and failures in providing this compensation.

Established in order to consider legal claims resulting from the significant historic events, Mass Claims Processes have become increasingly important phenomena in international dispute resolution. Processes covered in this book include the Iran-US Claims Tribunal, the UN Compensation Commission (relating to Iraq's invasion of Kuwait) and Mass Claims Processes relating to the Holocaust, the conflicts in Bosnia and Kosovo, and the war between Eritrea and Ethiopia. The book is structured around forty-seven basic topics that typically arise when creating an international Mass Claims Process, offering commentary on the ways in which the various Processes have dealt with each topic.

This volume from the International Bureau of the PCA presents a collection of studies on innovative responses to the unique challenges of resolving large numbers of claims arising from common, often tragic, circumstances-mass claims. The mass claims processes discussed in this volume were created in the aftermath of war or other atrocities, and redress is often an important component of settlement for the victims. The authors consider mass claims processes both from a conceptual and a practical perspective through lessons learned over twenty-five years. This book covers innovations to speed mass claims processes by means of new standards of proof and the use of information technology, as well as specific mass claims processes: the United Nations Compensation Commission; the Austrian General Settlement Fund; the French Commission for the Compensation of Victims of Spoliation; the German Forced Labour Compensation Programme; and the reparations provisions of the Statute of the International Criminal Court. From a North American perspective, authors address the litigation of mass claims involving slavery under United States law, the United States Indian Claims Commission, and the successful completion of the September 11th Victim Compensation Fund. In addition, Volume 1 of the Final Report of the Special Master of the September 11th Victim Compensation Fund is reprinted in its entirety. The responses of the international community to current issues of compensation and reparations, the role of civil society actors in reparations legislation, and recent instruments adopted by the Council of Europe and the United Nations Commission on Human Rights are also reviewed.

International claims commissions have, over the last few decades, established themselves as important and permanent fixtures in international adjudication. This book provides a comprehensive review and analysis of the workings and mechanics of claims commissions to assess their success and predict their utility in the future. The book authors examines the legal framework of an international claims commission and the basic elements its processing procedure, as well as exploring the difficulties and challenges associated with operating costs, remedies and compliance with judgments.

Reparations for Victims of Genocide, War Crimes and Crimes Against Humanity: Systems in Place and Systems in the Making provides a rich tapestry of practice in the complex and evolving field of reparations, which cuts across law, politics, psychology and victimology, among other disciplines. Ferstman and Goetz bring their long experiences with international organizations and civil society groups to bear. This second edition, which comes a decade after the first, contains updated information and many new chapters and reflections from key experts. It considers the challenges for victims to pursue reparations, looking from multiple angles at the Holocaust restitution movement and more recent cases in Europe, Asia, Africa, and the Americas. It also highlights the evolving practice of international courts and tribunals. First published in a hardbound edition, this second, fully revised and updated edition, is now available in paperback.

The right of refugees and internally displaced persons to return to their homes and places of residence in their country or place of origin following a refugee crisis has evolved significantly as a human rights norm over the past decade. Not only have several commentators and UN human rights bodies stressed the need for international peace-keeping operations to address effectively issues of housing and property rights, the past decade has seen international peace-keeping operations recognize these issues as a central component of peace- building efforts, and as indispensable to the promotion of peace, prosperity and development in post-conflict settings. Legal mechanisms mandated to address property issues and disputes have been established in particular national contexts to assist refugees and internally displaced persons (IDPs) to return to their homes, and there has emerged an explicit right of refugees and IDPs to restoration of their property rights, or compensation where restoration is no longer feasible. This is in stark contrast to the treatment of displaced persons over past centuries, whereby the homes and lands of those displaced, who were not on the side of the victors or those who remained in power, were lost forever. The aim of this book is to provide a comprehensive overview of property restitution in post-conflict Kosovo. It commences with a consideration of the origins and evolution of the right to property restitution for refugees and internally displaced persons. It provides the reader with an outline of the situation in Kosovo prior to the 1999 armed conflict, the developments that led to the international property related intervention, and the subsequent establishment of the HPD/HPCC (the Housing and Property Directorate and its independent quasi judicial body the Housing and Property Claims Commission). The international property-related intervention is considered from a legal, institutional, operational and administrative perspective. It also provides a comprehensive outline of the jurisprudence of the Commission and concludes with an account of the lessons learned from the process over its six years of operations.This is a two volume set.

Class arbitration first developed in the United States in the 1980s as a means of providing large numbers of individuals with the opportunity to assert their claims at the same time and in the same proceeding. Large-scale arbitration has since spread beyond U.S. borders, with collective arbitration being seen in Europe and mass arbitration being used in the international investment regime. Class, Mass, and Collective Arbitration in National and International Law considers all three forms of arbitration as a matter of domestic and international law, providing arbitrators, advocates and scholars with the tools they need to evaluate these sorts of procedural mechanisms. The book covers the best-known decisions in the field - Stolt-Nielsen S.A. v. Animal Feeds International Corp. and AT&T Mobility LLC v. Concepcion from the U.S. Supreme Court and Abaclat v. Argentine Republic from the world of investment arbitration - as well as specialized rules promulgated by the American Arbitration Association, JAMS and the German Institution of Arbitration (DIS). The text introduces dozens of previously undiscussed judicial opinions and covers issues ranging from contractual (or treaty) silence and waiver to regulatory concerns and matters of enforcement. The book discusses the entire timeline of class, mass and collective arbitration, ranging from the devices' historical origins through the present and into the future. Lawyers in a wide variety of jurisdictions will benefit from the material contained in this text, which is the first full-length monograph to address large-scale arbitration as a matter of national and international law.