is a budget surplus, it will be impossible to engage in aggressive reparations for victims without touching other State expenditures.56 By examining in detail reparations programmes and the history of their design, enactment and implementation, it is possible to reconstruct an account of how they aimed at bringing some sort of justice. Arguably, these programmes have pursued two goals that are intimately linked to justice: the first is to provide a measure of recognition to victims and thus to make a contribution to the full recovery of their dignity. The crucial point here is that the benefits provided by the programme are not meant to solidify the status of victims as victims, but rather as citizens, as holders of rights which are equal to those of other citizens. The benefits become a form of symbolic or nominal compensation for the fact that rights that were supposed to protect the basic integrity, possibilities and interests of citizens were violated. It is the violation of equal rights that triggers the provision of compensatory measures. And it is precisely because the benefits are given in recognition of the (violated) rights of citizens that this general aim of recognition is related to justice. Justice in a State governed by the rule of law is a relationship among citizens, that is, among the holders of equal rights. One important consequence is that the proper metric for assessing the size of the compensation owed in fairness to victims stems directly from the very violation of rights held in common by human beings and particularly by citizens, and not from each individual’s particular position prior to the violation. In other words, the fundamental obligation of a massive reparations scheme is not so much to return the individual to his or her status quo ante, but to recognize the seriousness of the violation of the equal rights of fellow citizens and to signal that the successor regime is committed to respecting those rights. The other main justice-related goal that can be attributed to reparations programmes is to make a (modest) contribution to fostering trust among persons and particularly between citizens and State institutions—trust that stems from commitment to the same general norms and values and can exist even among strangers. The point is that a well-crafted reparations programme is one that provides an indication to victims and others that past abuses are taken seriously by the new Government and that it is determined to make a contribution to the quality of life of survivors. Implemented in isolation from other justice initiatives such as criminal prosecutions and, primarily, truth-telling, reparations benefits might be counterproductive and be perceived more like a payment in exchange for the silence or acquiescence of victims and their families. On the other hand, if integrated into a comprehensive transitional justice policy, reparations 56 For example, the Government of South Africa was buying two submarines for its navy, while refusing to implement the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s recommendations on reparations, arguing that to do so would be too expensive. See Brandon Hamber and Kamilla Rasmussen, “Financing a reparations scheme for victims of political violence,” in From Rhetoric to Responsibility: Making Reparations to the Survivors of Past Political Violence in South Africa, Brandon Hamber and Tlhoki Mofokeng, eds. (Johannesburg, Centre for the Study of Violence and Reconciliation, 2000), pp. 52-59. The Government of Peru is, likewise, considering an expansion of its navy, even though the comprehensive recommendations on reparations from the Truth and Reconciliation Commission remain largely unheeded. 30