Abstract/Summary

In this essay, we will use the Haiti Cholera case study to explore how the victims and the socioeconomic turns are increasingly pivotal in the field of reparations as part of transitional justice. On December 1, 2016, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon apologized for the cholera epidemic in Haiti, an illness which arrived with Nepalese peacekeepers deployed after the 2010 earthquake. After years of silence and denial from the UN, the UN finally established a “New Approach to Cholera in Haiti,” promising material assistance and support to the victims through a “victim-centered approach.” The essay builds on our previous matrix used to clarify the debate made of two separate dimensions: the focus of reparations—collective versus individual—and the means of reparations—symbolic versus material.1 Based on fieldwork conducted in March 2017 in the communities most affected by the cholera outbreak, we demonstrate how the tensions between reparations offered by the UN (with a preference for collective symbolic reparations) and the reparations demanded by the victims (individual material reparations) can help explain why reparations were not fully (at best) successful in providing justice for the Haiti cholera victims and hopefully inform practice in this area for other UN trust funds and victims’ rights mechanisms. The first section discusses the specifics of the cholera crisis in Haiti and the subsequent Haiti Cholera Claims, including the sudden change of position by the UN in 2016 and the nature of reparations included in the New Approach to Cholera in Haiti. The second section looks at the reparations debate and the preferences expressed by the affected communities in Haiti. The third section puts the Haiti Cholera Claims in perspective, discussing the Kosovo Lead Poisoning case and the Mothers of Srebrenica case, both third party cases involving a UN peacekeeping presence like the Haiti Cholera Claims. Finally, the last section looks at the ramifications of the Haiti Cholera Claims and how reparations debates need to take into account wider structural factors impacting the development of third world countries.