“Whenever Sanctions Are Lifted, The Question Of Restitution Must Be Raised: Restitutio In Integrum, That Is”

When the heartless meet at the United Nations or, what is more often the case, declare sanctions unilaterally on other countries, this is the sort of misery they are taking out on the innocents.

Starving child struggling to reach a feeding centre in Sudan. Countries that impose sanctions on others are the real causes of such scenes. Picture by Kevin Carter.

by Kudakwashe Kanhutu

I had a dream last night that was so vivid, so real that when I woke up from it, I busied myself looking for the 3 gold medals I had won in the disciplines of swimming, archery and long distance running. In case the question has not been answered yet whether we dream in black and white or colour: I dream in colour because; the gold medals I won were gold in colour!

I do not believe I won these gold medals because I was the most outstanding athlete at the games. Instead, since I had refused to take payment for the advice I had given to the politicians of this state, I think they contrived to pay me in gold and thus let me win some disciplines. My dream however was not about my exploits at the Rome Olympics of 14 A.D. No it wasn’t. It just so happened that my invitation to advise the politicians of the day on how we moderns deal with sanctions, coincided with their Olympics year.

My dream transported me to exactly a day after the 12 year siege of Rome had been lifted. The enemies of Rome having found that they were also harming themselves economically by not doing business with Rome, chose to lift their blockade. Their attempt to choke Rome to death had not produced the full desired results. They had hoped that there would be an uprising where the people would destroy the ruling class and replace it with a puppet regime friendly to them. I arrived there to find the politicians in a heated debate on whether to now embrace the states that had caused them so much suffering by blockading Rome. One group in the debate was keen to get back to business as usual and start trading fully with the states that had blockaded them. The other side of the debate did not want to embrace, as if nothing had happened, the people who had caused the deaths of their families and ruined the Rome economy for 12 years.

The one side felt they could recover lost ground by fully going into trade. The side that was angry at having to deal with those who caused the death of their families through the blockade was beside itself with rage. The only problem is that the angry side had no proposal as to what to do next. It was to this inertia that I thought the way the moderns do things would be useful for them.

Restitutio In Integrum:

“Restitutio in integrum is a Latin maxim which means restoration to original condition. It is one of the primary guiding principles behind the awarding of damages in common law negligence claims. The general rule, as the principle implies, is that the amount of compensation awarded should put the successful plaintiff in the position he or she would have been had the tortious action not been committed. Thus the plaintiff should clearly be awarded damages for direct expenses such as medical bills and property repairs and the loss of future earnings attributable to the injury (which often involves difficult speculation about the future career and promotion prospects)." Source: Wikipedia.

Basing my advice on the above passage I read on Wikipedia only last week, I told them that their situation was very similar to the problems the moderns were having in the time before the United Nations was created. The politicians of Rome were very insightful, once I explained to them that the future is comprised of nations states and not city states as was current in their time, I didn’t have to explain anything further. I only concentrated on the issue at hand. My exact words were:

“The moderns have outlawed war and any form of aggression that is not given the go ahead (I was careful not to say "green light" since I would have been distracted into talking about the invention of the automobile etc) by the United Nations. Every nation state is now a member of this United Nations and so they meet every year to debate problems and solutions. Whenever a crisis arises, the only solution that is legal and which is beyond reproof is the one that has been signed as law and given the go ahead by the United Nations. If one country or a group of nations decide to act without the approval of the United Nations, this is called an unilateral action, nay an illegal action which must stop forthwith and the original condition restored. The United Nations has the power to impose sanctions (similar to the just ended siege of Rome) or authorize military force against an aggressor state. The point here is that if the United Nations approves of any action then it is legal. Thus if sanctions are imposed by a group of states and not the United Nations, they are illegal sanctions.”

The place I wanted to reach eventually was to talk to them about what we moderns do when what we call an Internationally Wrongful Act occurs. I quickly told them the siege they had experienced is what is now called economic sanctions in the modern age. My thoughts were that if sanctions are not imposed by the United Nations, they are an illegal act which should stop and damages paid.

Responsibility For Internationally Wrongful Acts:

Article 31

Reparation

1. The responsible State (s) is under an obligation to make full reparation for the injury caused by the internationally wrongful act.

2. Injury includes any damage, whether material or moral, caused by the internationally wrongful act of a State (s).

Source: State Responsibility for Internationally Wrongful Acts 2001. United Nations Website.[1]

I said to them therefore, suddenly inflicted by the desire to sound grave and wise: “Thus I say unto you, in my age those who feel wronged and can prove that the act was an internationally wrongful act have recourse to remedies such as the one we call Restitituo in intergrum. Which is to say, you can demand that the authors of this wrongful act which has caused you much suffering should pay you reparations and restore, as much as possible to the original condition, what your city was before they inflicted their siege on it. Where your relatives have died due to the siege, huge compensation must be paid, since the dead cannot be brought back to life. Economic losses which are calculable should be recompensed and projected incomes that were lost, paid. Those of you who insist on restitutio in integrum will be viewed as hardliners, resistant to change, and those who welcome the lifting of the siege without any further discussion will be called moderates and progressive. These names mean nothing in the long run. The main point is since you cannot impose a siege on yourselves, what you can do is to refuse to meet any conditions they have imposed on you in exchange for lifting their siege. The first thing that has to happen is that they should restore your city to its greatness before their siege began. Only then will you consider their conditions.”

There was great applause and, as with dreams, somehow we entered the Olympic Village where I proceeded to win 3 (three) gold medals in swimming, archery and long distance running. When I woke up I even looked under my bed for my gold medals, so vivid was the dream.