The Global Experience of Transitional Justice reparation in an adequate form. Today, a wide range of international human rights treaties and declarative instruments include a right to reparation for victims of human rights abuses, in particular the UN’s Basic Principles and Guidelines on the right to a remedy and reparation.3 What does that obligation imply for states? States must put in place a range of measures to meet the victims’ right to reparation, which includes a procedural and a substantive aspect. Procedurally, states must enable victims to have their cases heard, providing judicial or public recognition, while, on the substantive side, states have to ensure that at the end of that process victims can obtain certain forms of reparation. Reparation can come in different forms, yet ideally it is a combination of material and symbolic measures taken to address the harm done to victims. The UN’s Basic Principles provide for five forms of reparation: restitution, compen­ sation, rehabilitation, satisfaction, and guarantees of non-repetition. I shall not go into detail as to what these different forms can include, though it is important to emphasize that states have a certain degree of flexibility in the measures they take to provide these forms of reparation; ideally, a reparation mechanism in a transitional justice process will include a combination of all these forms of reparation. A good example of how states have approached the wide-ranging forms of reparation is Morocco, where a truth commission was established to deal with decades of human rights abuses, and reparation measures included financial compensation to families as well as psychological and long-term medical assistance for victims, in addition to symbolic reparation measures. The degree of flexibility that states have in providing reparation is important, as victims’ perceptions of reparations and the reparations process will always be different, depending on the context and situation that victims find themselves in. Victims in the midst of a conflict with security concerns will not find time to think about reparation, but that does not mean that they do not need or want reparation at a later stage. In Argentina, the immediate concern of victims was to find out about the ‘disappeared’ people, to establish the truth and to punish those responsible. Other forms of reparation, in particular compensation, were regarded as secondary, or even discarded, as many found it distasteful to be paid for the loss of a loved one. However, at later stage, a significant reparations 3  United Nations, Basic Principles and Guidelines on the Right to a Remedy and Reparation for Victims of Gross Violations of International Human Rights Law and Serious Violations of International Humanitarian Law (A/RES/60/147), available at <http://www.undemocracy. com/A-RES-60-147.pdf>. Accessed 12 Apr. 2013. International Conference on Transitional Justice, Zimbabwe 23