Article

On the power of a State to waive reparation claims arising from war crimes and crimes against humanity

Alessandro Bufalini

• Zeitschrift für ausländisches öffentliches Recht und Völkerrecht = Heidelberg journal of international law, 77. Jg., H. 2/2017, p. 447-470

English

After war it is common practice among States to conclude lump-sum agreements in order to settle the issue of reparations owed by one party to another. In most of these agreements, there are provisions in which a State waives any future reparation claims related to the injuries suffered during the armed conflict. Notwithstanding this practice, it might be of some interest to assess whether the State's power to waive reparations is today subject to some limitation or whether it is a right which each State is freely entitled to exercise. Evolutionary trends in the law of State responsibility, in fact, seem to suggest the existence of some limitation to the State's power to waive reparation claims arising from violations of peremptory norms. Limitations to the State's power to waive reparation claims might also be inferred from the interpretation of a number of provisions of the Geneva Conventions of 1949. To these legal arguments, one could add more general policy reasons based on the importance of collective and non-economic forms of reparation.

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• Zeitschrift für ausländisches öffentliches Recht und Völkerrecht = Heidelberg journal of international law / Max-Planck-Institut für Völkerrecht
• Zeitschrift für ausländisches öffentliches Recht und Völkerrecht = Heidelberg journal of international law [77. Jahrgang, H. 2/2017] / Max-Planck-Institut für Völkerrecht