Abstract
The United Nations declaration owes its existence to a few dedicated individuals within and outside the UN. Miss Irene Mellup, who used to work in the Crime Prevention Section of the UN in New York, was mainly interested in a declaration on victims of abuse of power, while Professor Irvin Waller of the University of Ottawa was primarily preoccupied with victims of crime. The final declaration incorporating both categories of victims is the outcome of a lengthy process involving group discussions, lobbying and countless changes and compromises. At the outset there were actually two draft declarations. The first, on victims of crime, was drafted in 1983 by Waller. The second, on victims of crime, was drafted the same year by Professor LeRoy Lamborn from Wayne State University School of Law, at the request and with the blessing of Irene Mellup. At an ad hoc United Nations interregional meeting of experts held in Ottawa in July 1984 both drafts were discussed by a working group. As a result of the discussions, several changes were made and a single draft was prepared. This latter draft came under further debate during the Seventh UN Congress on the Prevention of Crime and the Treatment of Offenders, held in Milan, Italy, in 1985.1
The victim’s rights movement draws much of its energy from the horror story syndrome ... Conservatives have seized the victim’s rights issue and made it their own. In California, for example, the advocates of Proposition 8 were the traditional prosecution-oriented law-and-order leaders, while civil libertarians were the primary opponents. The President’s Task Force on the Victims of Crime was also dominated by traditional conservative spokespersons.
S. Walker (1985: 137)
Many of the items on the Victim’s Bill of Rights agenda are positively harmful and unconstitutional. The harm has a special, cruel irony to it: proposals designed to help crime victims turn out to hurt them.
S. Walker (1985: 141)
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Fattah, E.A. (1992). The United Nations Declaration of Basic Principles of Justice for Victims of Crime and Abuse of Power: A Constructive Critique. In: Fattah, E.A. (eds) Towards a Critical Victimology. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-22089-2_14
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