Anyone living among Greek Cypriots is accustomed to viewing human rights as a Platonic idea: unchangeable, eternal and perfect. However, it is clear from the experience of those who spend their lives studying judgments of international courts that human rights as implemented in practice are much more akin to the Plato’s imperfect instances in the sensible world.
A discussion on human rights as implemented in practice arose during the PRIO Cyprus Centre conference on Saturday, entitled “Peacebuilding in divided societies”.
Dr. Ayla G?rel of the PRIO Cyprus Centre introduced the session by describing the two difference approaches to the property issue that have been taken by the Greek Cypriot and Turkish Cypriot communities in Cyprus.
She noted that for Turkish Cypriots, the principal of bizonality has been paramount, as it relates to concerns about security. For Greek Cypriots, on the other hand, the principal of human rights has been paramount.
This has even led to different interpretations of agreements such as the Vienna agreement of 1975. This was viewed by Turkish Cypriots as reinforcing bizonality by allowing for population exchange, but was viewed by Greek Cypriots as reinforcing human rights by allowing for family reunification.
However, Leopold von Carlowitz, Research Fellow at the Peace Institute Frankfurt, noted that the right to property is not sacrosanct in international law, the most obvious example being the right of a state to disappropriate property in the public interest.
Moreover, his comments on recent history imply that not everyone is treated the same, because political exigencies heavily influence the way in which human rights are implemented in practice.
For example, 12 million Germans expelled from countries such as Czechoslovakia after the Second World War have had a much less sympathetic hearing as regards their property rights than others, largely because Germany was held responsible for both world wars.
He said that they “pay price for a prevalent historical narrative”.
However, as noted by G?rel, there is no prevalent historical narrative for Cyprus that is accepted by both sides.
Other decisions have allowed Poles to be compensated at much less than market value for lost property now lying in the former Soviet Union because it was recognised that post-communist states did not have the funds to pay full compensation.
This decision came despite a European Court of Human Rights judgment that says if expropriation takes place it should be compensated at market value.
“In tough cases property can be taken without compensation,” he said.
James-Ker-Lindsay of Civilitas Research commented that international law as applied appears to imply that if a settlement of the Cyprus problem is judged in the public interest, then it would be in keeping with international law to limit individual rights for that purpose.
Tim Potier, international lawyer at Intercollege, noted that this changeable interpretation of human rights is not taken into account in much of the discourse among Greek Cypriots.
He explained that when a lawyer stands up and says that something is contrary to EU or international law, nobody questions it. But in the real world there are always two lawyers in a case: on the plaintiff and the defendant sides.
Need to map maximum compensation
Achilleas Demetriades, the plaintiff’s lawyer in the now famous Loizidou case against Turkey, argued for the need to calculate how much compensation might be paid in the maximum case. He noted that many people’s sense of justice had been offended by the fact that the Annan Plan left any remaining compensation claims after the property restitution process to the plaintiff’s constituent state.
He recommended that in order to put a “boundary” on potential claims and to come to a compromise, it was first necessary to “map” the maximum compensation that anyone could claim.
This would require identifying not just the straighforward issues such as who has been dispossessed, but also trickier issues such as who is liable (Turkey, Greece, Britain, Cypriots?) and, importantly, how much could be claimed for the newer types of damage under international law, namely loss of use.
“We have to map the maximum first and then we can come down to the compromise,” he said.
Fiona Mullen
