Handbook on Restorative justice programmes

3.1 Basic principles on the use of 
restorative justice programmes 
in criminal matters
The Basic Principles on the Use of Restorative Justice Programmes in Criminal
Matters (see annex II) was adopted in 2002 by the United Nations
Economic and Social Council. Their purpose is to inform and encourage
Member States to adopt and standardize restorative justice measures in
the context of their legal systems, but there was no intention to make them
mandatory or prescriptive. The core part of the Basic Principles deals with
setting the parameters for the use of restorative justice and the measures
that should be adopted by Member States to ensure that participants in
restorative processes are protected by appropriate legal safeguards.
Specifically, parts II and III of the document deal respectively with trying
to define the appropriate use of restorative justice (e.g. when there is suf-
ficient evidence against the offender to justify an intervention and when
the offender and the victim consent) and the nature of the legal safeguards
that should be set in place.
The  Basic Principles refers to the following fundamental safeguards
(para. 13):