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Rehabilitation is a Right
In 2005, the UN Commission on Human Rights adopted the UN Basic Principles and Guidelines on the
Right to a Remedy and Reparation for Victims of Gross Violations of International Human Rights Law
and Serious Violations of International Humanitarian Law (hereafter ‘Basic Principles’). The Basic
Principles aim to merge international humanitarian and human rights law and stress the importance
of and obligation to implement domestic reparations for victims of abuses. In March 2006, the Basic
Principles were adopted by the UN General Assembly, further strengthening their status even
though they are formally non-binding.
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Significantly, the Basic Principles detail the range of possible reparations—restitution, compensation,
rehabilitation, satisfaction, and guarantees of non-repetition. The Basic Principles, while still in draft
form, were already being referred to in the jurisprudence of numerous human rights treaty bodies,
and figure in several recently adopted international legal instruments and domestic legislation, and
have also been applied by a number of truth commissions across the globe.
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The Basic Principles
largely reflect already established norms in international law and make an important contribution in
unifying and reinforcing them.
Relevant to victims of serious human rights abuses in Uzbekistan, Nowak and MacArthur state:
'usually, victims of torture are not primarily interested in monetary compensation but in other
means of reparation which are better suited to restore their dignity and humanity.”
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UN Basic Principles and Guidelines on the Right to a Remedy and Reparation for Victims of Gross Violations of International Human
Rights Law and Serious Violations of International Humanitarian Law, Preamble, adopted by the UN Commission on Human Rights in 2005,
UN Doc. E/CN.4/RES/2005/35 and adopted by the General Assembly on 16 December 2005, UN Doc. A/RES/60/147.
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The Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC) contains an implicit reference to the principles in Article 75; they are also
explicitly mentioned in the International Convention on the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance, Article 24 (adopted
December 20
th
2006, entered into force December 23
rd
2010); For example, the truth commissions in South Africa and Sierra
Leone, as
underlined by Yasmin Sooka, former Commissioner in the South African and Sierra Leone TRCs during ‘Workshop to Combat Impunity and
Provide Reparations’ at OHCHR Geneva on September 19
th
2005. See also Shelton, Dinah. 2005. Remedies in International Human Rights
Law. Oxford: Oxford University Press. p. 350.
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Nowak, Manfred and McArthur, Elizabeth. 2008. The United Nations Convention against Torture, A Commentary. Oxford: Oxford
University Press. p. 483.
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International law does not clearly define rehabilitation as a form of reparation. The closest
expression of a definition found in the Basic Principles shows that in certain situations persons who
have suffered serious human rights or humanitarian law violations should be redressed by way of,
among others, rehabilitation, meaning physical and psychological care as well as social and legal
services.
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Therefore, while the concept of rehabilitation set out in the Basic Principles points to
forms of rehabilitation beyond health, it does not fully define what each one of them means or
includes.
Diane Shelton, a leading scholar on reparations, defines rehabilitation as a right of “all victims of
serious abuse and their dependants” [sic] and is “the process of restoring the individual’s full health
and reputation after the trauma of a serious attack on one’s physical or mental integrity [...] It aims
to restore what has been lost. Rehabilitation seeks to achieve maximum physical and psychological
fitness by addressing the individual, the family, local community and even the society as a whole.”
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Recently, the UN Committee against Torture made more urgent and concrete Uzbekistan’s
obligation to provide rehabilitation to former political prisoners and victims of torture. In its
December 2019 Concluding Observations, welcoming Tashkent’s release of a ‘substantial number’ of
political prisoners since September 2016, the Committee called on the government to ‘exonerate’
those convicted in unfair trials or on the basis of torture, provide them with ‘redress, including
compensation and rehabilitation’ and to ‘consider creating an independent commission to
investigate these matters.’
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Beginning in September 2016, following former prime minister Shavkat Mirziyoyev’s ascendancy to the presidency on the death of Islam
Karimov, the Uzbek government began to release political prisoners – among them human rights activists, journalists, political opposition
and peaceful religious figures. To date, approximately 55 high profile political prisoners have been released. Almost none have received
rehabilitation. © Steve Swerdlow, September 2014.
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UN Basic Principles and Guidelines on the Right to a Remedy and Reparation for Victims of Gross Violations of International Human
Rights Law and Serious Violations of International Humanitarian Law, Preamble, adopted by the UN Commission on Human Rights in 2005,
UN Doc. E/CN.4/RES/2005/35 and adopted by the General Assembly on December 16
th
2005, UN Doc. A/RES/60/147.
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Shelton, Dinah. Remedies in International Human Rights. Oxford: Oxford University Press. p. 275.
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UN Committee against Torture, Committee against Torture, Concluding observations on the fifth periodic report of Uzbekistan,
https://tbinternet.ohchr.org/Treaties/CAT/Shared%20Documents/UZB/CAT_C_UZB_CO_5_39781_E.pdf
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