: International instruments now defend a "right to the truth " for victims of political repression and violence and include truth telling about human rights violations as a kind of reparation as well as a form of redress. While truth telling about violations is obviously a condition of redress or repair for violations, it may not be clear how truth telling itself is a kind of reparations. By showing that concerted truth telling can satisfy four features of suitable reparations vehicles, (...) I defend the idea that politically implemented modes of truth telling to, for, and by those who are victims of gross violation and injustice may with good reason be counted as a kind of reparations. Understanding the doubly symbolic character of reparations, however, makes clearer why truth telling is unlikely to be sufficient reparation for serious wrongs and is likely to be sensitive to the larger context of reparative activity and its social, political, and historical background. (shrink)

This paper argues that land and resource rights are often essential in overcoming colonial inequality and devaluation of indigenous populations and cultures. It thereby criticizes global welfare egalitarians that promote the abolition of national sovereignty over resources in the name of increased equality. The paper discusses two ways in which land and resource rights contribute to decolonization and the eradication of the associated inequality. First, it proposes that land and resource rights have acquired a status-conferring function for colonized peoples so (...) that possession of full personhood and relational equality is partially expressed through the possession of land and resource rights. Second, it suggests that successful internal decolonization depends on access to and control over land and resources, especially for indigenous peoples. (shrink)

This article examines the nature of the wrongs that are inflicted on individuals and groups who have been expelled from the land that they previously occupied, and asks what they might consequently be owed as a matter of corrective justice. I argue that there are three sorts of potential wrongs involved in such expulsions: being deprived of the moral right of occupancy; being denied collective self-determination; and having one's property rights violated. Although analytically distinct, all of these wrongs are likely (...) to be perpetrated when people are expelled from their homelands. Although there is substantial literature on corrective justice dealing with such cases, most of that literature focuses on the expropriation of property only, and is therefore unlikely to grasp the full implications of the wrong done or to reveal the full extent of what might be owed to people as a matter of corrective justice. (shrink)

Defenders of Aboriginal rights such as James Tully have argued that members of majority populations should allow Aboriginal peoples to argue within their own preferred intellectual frameworks in seeking common moral ground. But how should non-Aboriginal academics react to claims that seem insufficiently critical or even incoherent? This essay argues that there are two reasons to be especially wary of attacking such errors given the historical injustices perpetrated by settler states against Aboriginal peoples. First, attempts to root out error will (...) often be misplaced, because they will fail to consider the full range of possible reasons for particular kinds of social practices. Second, such attempts will often have counterproductive social effects in disrupting conversations and prolonging Aboriginal alienation. This essay thus argues that non-Aboriginal academics should be willing to exercise considerable self-restraint toward apparent intellectual errors, because such a strategy will be most conducive to realizing justice over the long term. (shrink)

Government refusals to apologise for past wrongful practices such as slavery or the removal of indigenous children from their parents seem evidently unjust. It is surprising, then, that some ethical considerations appear to support such stances. Jacques Derrida's account of forgiveness as entirely independent of apology appears to preclude the need for official apologies. I contend that governments are obligated to apologize for past injustices because they are responsible for them and that official apologies should not involve a corresponding expectation (...) for forgiveness. My argument is that an apology and forgiveness are asymmetrical because an apology is based on respect, a perfect duty, and can be a public act, whereas forgiveness is based on love, is an imperfect duty, and is a personal undertaking. It follows from this asymmetry that an apology is a prerequisite for reconciliation, but forgiveness is discretionary. Refusals to apologize tend to impede the reconciliation process and make the possibility of forgiveness remote. The concept of reconciliation has also been criticized on the grounds that reconciliation implies a former harmony that should be restored and fault on both sides. However, I argue it should be understood as a willingness to work together without a presumption of having overcome the past. (shrink)