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case of a violation of one of its rights enjoys a wider recognition than in the area of
international humanitarian law.
The practice of liability systems established by international organisations provides
further support for such a conclusion. Already in 1965 the UN Secretary General
U Thant
stated in the context of UN peace operations that:
“It has always been the
policy of the United Nations … to compensate individuals who have suffered damages for
which the Organization is legally liable. This policy is in keeping with generally recognized
legal principles…”
84
To sum up: If international organisations breach human rights, they bear
responsibility for such violations, and, based on the
Chorzów factory
principle, which
is applicable as a general principle of international law, they have also the duty to
provide reparation. Hence international responsibility can be considered as the basis
on which an obligation of international organisations under general international
law to provide reparation to victims of human rights violations can be constructed.
4. Conclusions and final comments
InOctober 2010, theUnitedNations StabilizationMission inHaiti (MINUSTAH)
introduced a cholera epidemic that infected and killed a large number of Haitians.
Subsequently some 5000 cholera victims decided to file claims against the United
Nations before US American courts, as the United Nations refused to provide any
redress, including reparation, mainly on grounds of its immunity under international
law. This recent example materializes legal issues connected with the qualitative and
quantitative evolution of international organisations, which has led to their increased
ability to impact individuals and their legal position directly, including violations
of human rights. For victims of such violations, their right to reparation becomes
the central issue in obtaining justice in such situations. Taking into account the
separate legal position of international organisations under international law, it is
only consistent to ask whether victims have a right to reparation against international
organisations.
Under current international law, an individual right to reparation is well established
against States. It is enshrined in several international human rights treaties and further
refined by their control mechanisms, i.e. international and regional courts, mechanisms
and treaty bodies. A right to reparation exists, however, also outside of conventional
regimes, as it seems plausible to conclude that under international human rights law
every primary right is inevitably connected with the secondary right to reparation as a
corollary right. It would be incoherent and contradictory to assume the existence of
substantial individual rights but to deny the existence of the corresponding right to
reparation. Such a position would create a substantial gap in human rights protection.
84
Letter Dated 6 August 1965 From the Secretary-General Addressed to the Acting Permanent Representatvie
of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics
(UN Doc. S/6597).