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Recommendations

The sheer scale of the damage, dislocation, and wholesale wrongdoing committed by the security forces and the PKK over the past 20 years present serious problems for any effort at compensation. Even in 2005 the Compensation Law did not reliably provide an effective remedy for displaced people, but since the Içyer judgment at the ECtHR it has become swiftly and progressively less just and less functional.

The Compensation Law, in its original conception, was a creative and fair initiative. Few post-conflict reconstruction processes have included proper compensation of the displaced populations. This measure was secured in large part by the influence of the Council of Europe in general, and the ECtHR in particular. It will be a great injustice if grudging local officials are allowed to use an ECtHR judgment to undermine an innovative provision for displaced people, and set an unfair, restrictive, and inconsistent procedure as a precedent and standard for similar future processes elsewhere in the world.

Human Rights Watch recommends to the Turkish government that it should:

immediately freeze the work of the damage assessment commissions while a speedy review is conducted of their working methods, and the levels of conciliation payments made.

consider shifting to the payment of a standard sum per household, calculated on a per-member, and per-year-of-displacement basis, and provide a legal mechanism for those who wish to opt out of this standard-sum-solution.

ensure that an average-sized family displaced for 12 years receives not less than TL 50,000 ($33,500), the average for the first and widely publicized conciliation proposals in Batman, and the approximate average payment made by the ECtHR in forced displacement cases in Turkey.

Meanwhile, the European Court of Human Rights and the Council of Europe should seek further information on the impact of the Içyer judgment. The court should consider revising that judgment in light of the rapid deterioration in the performance of the damage assessment commissions.

The European Union should maintain its close monitoring and reporting of how the Compensation Law is implemented, and use its authority to raise the problems caused by the Içyer judgment with the Turkish government, the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe, and the European Court of Human Rights.