“Reparations and restorative justice: Responding the gross violation of human rights.”

Source: (2001) In Restorative justice and civil society, eds. Heather Strang and John Braithwaite, 83-98. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

Restorative justice theory has largely addressed matters relating to wrongdoing and response to wrongdoing within a criminal justice context. Cunneen seeks to extend restorative justice ideas to human rights, especially to the matter of reparations for violations of human rights when the state is the culprit. Several examples from around the world of governmental responses to past human rights violations are identified and set in a context of restorative principles and actions. On this basis, Cunneen looks closely at the issue of reparations and restorative justice in the context of the Australian government’s response to a national inquiry into the official practice, from the late 1800s to the mid 1960s, of separating aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children from their families.