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In recent years, there has been a handful of lawsuits billed as attempts to gain reparations for the Armenian Genocide. These suits, however, have concerned only ancillary wrongs done to individuals, not the culpable harm done to the Armenian group as a whole through genocide. As such, these suits do not actually pursue reparations for the Armenian Genocide. Not only do awarded or negotiated reparations not function to address the damage done by the Armenian Genocide as a force of group destruction - a force whose consequences remain debilitating today politically, economically, culturally, and socially - but the basis of the cases is not the genocide. In fact, misrepresented as genocide reparations cases, they displace genuine reparation claims. The focus on individual suits and exclusion of genuine group reparations are a function of the limits of the Western liberal individual intellectual and political system that grounds international law. Only through fundamental changes in the guiding assumptions of that system will adequate, that is, true group reparations become viable. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article focuses on a specific component of the expropriation of property from non-Muslim minorities that began the Armenian Genocide and similar expropriations from Greeks, the long period of dispossession of the property of non-Muslim foundations resulting from use of the 1936 requirement that all non-Muslim foundations provide the government a list of their immovable properties and go through a complex permitting process regarding property acquisition. This has been an important part of the capital accumulation process in the Turkish Republic for decades. The confiscations beginning in the late 1960s constitute a continuous breach due to the fact that these properties have never been returned to their owners. As result, these claims for the return of such property could be taken to the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For centuries prior to the Armenian Genocide the Armenian Church was the spiritual, cultural, and social center of Armenian life in the Ottoman Empire. The genocide attacked the Church in order to destroy the broader community. The Church suffered greatly in the Genocide. Still of major concern today, is the expropriation and neglect of the Church's extensive property in modern-day Turkey. The churches, other buildings and the lands on which they sit have tremendous importance to Armenians around the world. They are necessary to the functioning and recovery of the Armenian Church that is central to Armenian life and identity. As part of a reparations process for Armenians, the return of Church properties is crucial and is justified. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article argues that United Nations human rights principles and new developments in the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights and the European Court of Human Rights suggest a route to provide effective reparation through restoration of historical memory and dignity for victims of the Armenian Genocide. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article aims to identify a legal structure for the determination of state responsibility for historical injustices by using the deportations and mass killings of the Armenians in the Ottoman Empire (1915-1916) as a case study. It first determines whether the conduct was unlawful at the time it was committed and concludes that the 1948 Genocide Convention cannot be applied retroactively to the events in question and that customary international law provided, at the time, that the treatment by a state of its subjects was within its domestic jurisdiction. The Ottoman Empire, however, breached a series of treaties that provided for the amelioration of the conditions and for the protection of Christian minorities in the empire. The article then discusses whether the conduct was attributable to the state under the law of state responsibility in force at the time of the commissi delicti and argues that while the conduct of the Ottoman ministers, local authorities, and the military can be attributed to the Ottoman Empire, the attribution of the actions of other entities and individuals involved in the killings is more problematic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An introduction is presented in which the editor discusses various reports published within the issue which include the reparations for the Armenian genocide, the comprehensive property expropriations of the Armenians, and the applicability of international laws to the Armenian case.

This article examines the potential for litigation relating to Armenian properties confiscated following the Armenian Genocide before the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR). It finds that the ECtHR's lack of retroactive jurisdiction is a priori an obstacle but that the concept of 'continuous violation' may be of assistance, even though expropriation is typically considered an 'instantaneous violation.' Nonetheless, the article concludes with a few thoughts on how the 'actuality' of expropriations, as well as their unique character in relation to the commission of a genocide, might nonetheless warrant an exceptional assertion of jurisdiction that would be consonant with victims' right to an effective remedy under international human rights law. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Armenian Genocide of 1915, while causing substantial loss of life, also had enormous economic consequences. Important new scholarship has established that depriving Armenians of their homes, businesses, and personal effects was a means of ensuring their removal from Turkey. The findings establish that Armenian property was then misappropriated to benefit Turkey. The economic harm continues today, largely unmitigated. Mere economic loss due to State action, alone, is difficult to fit within the accepted definition of genocide. Yet, the mass killings and deportations surrounding the property losses make the economic harm legally relevant. Further, the economic dimension has significance, the genocide aside. Claims for reparation, which arise out of contract and property law, are the most viable legal option for many of the heirs of the Armenians. Pursuing claims, however, is costly and time-consuming. Ideally, the significance of the claims and the difficulties of a piece-meal approach to resolving them could lead to an international claims settlement process for the benefit of the affected Armenians. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article discusses whether the International Criminal Court (ICC) could be considered as a possible avenue to address the Armenian Genocide. In light of the jurisdictional limits of the Court, it is argued that it is unlikely that it will ever be a suitable forum in this respect. Indeed, not only are the alleged perpetrators all deceased, but the ICC does not have retroactive jurisdiction. Moreover, it might be the case that some factual aspects of the events might make the crimes against humanity characterisation more adequate. The article concludes with a discussion of the necessity of accepting the limitations of law, notably criminal law, in addressing past events of such magnitude. Ignorance of these limitations makes the operation of trying to get the ICC to address the issue akin to the impossible task of jumping hurdles backwards. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]