Durable Solutions as Reparation for the Unjust Harms of Displacement: Who Owes What to Refugees?

This article examines some of the theoretical and practical implications of understanding durable solutions as potential forms of reparation that can be offered to refugees for the unjust harms of displacement. It begins by making a basic moral case that durable solutions can act as forms of reparation, exploring the ways in which the creation or restoration of effective citizenship in a state through one of the durable solutions can go some way to providing restitution, compensation and satisfaction for refugees. It then discusses some considerations which need to be taken into account when seeking to identify which state should offer which durable solution as reparation to which refugees in any given case, such as the refugees’ choice, their place of residence and social ties, their sense of group identity, and questions of state capacity and efficiency. Observing that bestowing a reparative function upon durable solutions would potentially create a tension with their classical humanitarian rationale, it moves to explore how this tension might be navigated, with particular reference to the question of how states with limited resources should prioritize the needs of refugees for whose flight they are morally responsible vis-à-vis refugees for whose flight they are not responsible.