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LITHUANIAN REGULATION GOVERNING THE CLAIM FOR DAMAGES INCURRED DURING THE SOVIET OCCUPATION

LITHUANIAN REGULATION GOVERNING THE CLAIM FOR DAMAGES INCURRED DURING THE SOVIET OCCUPATION. Prof. dr. Dainius Žalimas. WHY IS IT NECESSARY TO CALCULATE THE LOSSES, INCURRED DURING THE SOVIET OCCUPATION, AND TO PURSUE THE CLAIM OF RUSSIA’S RESPONSIBILITY ?.

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LITHUANIAN REGULATION GOVERNING THE CLAIM FOR DAMAGES INCURRED DURING THE SOVIET OCCUPATION

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  1. LITHUANIAN REGULATION GOVERNING THE CLAIM FOR DAMAGES INCURRED DURING THE SOVIET OCCUPATION Prof. dr. Dainius Žalimas

  2. WHY IS IT NECESSARY TO CALCULATE THE LOSSES, INCURRED DURING THE SOVIET OCCUPATION, AND TO PURSUE THE CLAIM OF RUSSIA’S RESPONSIBILITY? • Presenting a well-grounded claim for compensation may be seen as a certain deterrent against committing similar crimes. • It is necessary to provide at least symbolical justice and moral satisfaction for the victims of the crimes committed by the Soviet occupation regime, as well as to ensure appropriate level of protection of their dignity. • The need to keep the historical memory and historical truth alive, especially when attempts to reconstruct history and even to question the legality of restoration of the independence of the Baltic States are being revitalized in Russia. • The realisation of responsibility is a precondition for sincere bilateral relations among states. • Claiming responsibility for international crimes is one of the means to reaffirming the commitment towards the rule of law, justice and other important values of the modern democratic world.

  3. THE LAW ON COMPENSATION OF DAMAGE RESULTING FROM THE OCCUPATION OF THE USSR • Adopted by the Seimas of the Republic of Lithuania on 13 June 2000; • Concerns only interstate relations; • Consolidates the will of Lithuanian people, expressed in the referendum of 14 June 1992 → can not be annulled, unless through another referendum the people would decide to renounce the demand for compensation; • Adopted in accordance with the universally recognised norms and principles of international law.

  4. THE SCOPE AND THE FORM OF REPARATION • The principle of full reparation: any damage, whether material or moral, caused by the internationally wrongful act is subject to reparation (Permanent Court of International Justice Factory at Chorzów case, 1928). • The Law on Compensation of Damage focuses on compensation as the most suitable form of full reparation. • Compensation is most commonly sought in international practice; the International Court of Justice has even deduced a general right of an injured State to compensation (Gabčikovo-Nagymaros Project case, 1997).

  5. ASPECTS RELEVANT TO CALCULATING COMPENSATION • The period for which the damage has to be estimated: starting from the beginning of the occupation and ending with the withdrawal of Russian troops (1940-1993) (Art.1); • Scope of the Damage (calculated in accordance to the governmental Work Programme, approved by the Government in 1996): • damage suffered by the Lithuanian State; • damage suffered by Lithuanian nationals, whether persons or companies.

  6. GOVERNMENTAL WORK PROGRAMMECOMPRISED15 CATEGORIES (88 SUBCATEGORIES) OF THE DAMAGE RELATED TO THE SOVIET OCCUPATION: • The damage resulted from genocide and other repressions; • The damage resulted from the persecutions of the resistance to the occupation; • The damage done by forced recruitment of the population of the occupied country to the Soviet armed forces; • The damage to urban residents and countrymen; • The damage arisen out of forced emigration from Lithuania to the West; • The damage to the Catholic Church and other confessions; • The damage to the legal persons; • The damage sustained by non-governmental organisations;

  7. The damage related to the cessation of State functions of vital importance as well as the costs of their renewal; • The damage done to the State property; • The environmental damage, including pollution from military and industrial objects; • The damage to Lithuanian economy, including the loss of national income due to the forced introduction of the ineffective Soviet economic system; • The damage to Lithuanian culture; • The damage resulted from the presence of the occupation armed forces and other repression structures; • The German reparations paid to the Soviet Union for the damage inflicted on Lithuania during the German occupation in 1941-1944.

  8. EXPENDITURES REASONABLY INCURRED TO REMEDY OR MITIGATE DAMAGE FLOWING FROM AN INTERNATIONALLY WRONGFUL ACT • Art. 2(2) of the Law on Compensation for Damage obliged the Government, in addition to the damage specified in the Work Programme, to include into the calculation “payments to the Lithuanian citizens for the damage caused during the USSR occupation and its consequences, as well as expenses related to the return to the Homeland of the deportees and their descendants”. • The Republic of Lithuania is not legally responsible for the damage and injuries inflicted on the victims by the Soviet occupation regime→ reparation, provided by the Republic of Lithuania, to the victims of the repression is also a part of the claim for compensation of the damage that resulted from the Soviet occupation.

  9. THE PAYMENTS TO LITHUANIAN CITIZENS FROM THE STATE BUDGET OF LITHUANIA: • The state pensions for the injured resistants, political prisoners, deportees and persons injured by the Soviet forces in January-August 1991 or the members of their families; • The extraordinary allowances to resistants, who had been wounded during the armed Resistance fights or subsequent investigation or imprisonment (from 1622 to 4171 Euros) and the families of the fallen resistants (from 2896 to 5792 Euros); • The compensations to those former deportees or detainees who were subject to forced labour (6 Euros for each month spent in places of imprisonment and forced labour); • Compensations to the persons who refused to comply with the conscription to the Soviet armed forces in 1990-1991 and for that reason were injured by the actions of those forces (around 1159 Euros).

  10. THE AMOUNT OF COMPENSATION • A special Commission gathered data from different institutions and calculated damage based on the before-mentioned 15 categories (and 88 subcategories). • Due to the absence of damage or the lack of data, damage was not determined in relation with the following four categories: • the appropriation of residents’ securities, cash funds, and bank savings in 1940; • damage to public organisations resulting from their unlawful liquidation or the appropriation of their names and rights; • expenses related to the rebuilding of premises of public organisations and return of these premises for use according to their purposes; • damage to the court system. • Damage caused to archives was not assessed in monetary terms.

  11. OVERALL DAMAGE • The overall damage resulted from the Soviet occupation, estimated according to the UN recognised methodologies (including the loss of gross domestic product due to the Soviet interference into national economy of Lithuania, calculatedby comparing the data on increase in the national revenue of Lithuania against the corresponding increase in the national revenue of Finland and Denmark), amounted to approximately 800 billion US dollars. • Damage caused by the USSR makes up 99.90 %, by the armed forces of the Russian Federation – 0.10 % of the total damage.

  12. DIRECT DAMAGE (NOT INCLUDING THE LOSS OF NATIONAL REVENUE) - 20 billion US dollars • Compensation for killed and fallen Lithuanian people – 7.5 billion; • Damage inflicted by the genocide and other repressions – 1.8 billion; • Damage inflicted by the persecutions of the resistance to the occupation – 171 million; • Damage done by forced recruitment of the population to the soviet armed forces – 2.3 billion; • Damage to the population inflicted by the nationalisation, collectivisation and confiscation of bank deposits – 0.5 billion;

  13. Damage inflicted on the Catholic Church and other confessions – 0.2 billion; • Damage related to the cessation of State functions of vital importance – 1.4 billion; • Damage from forced emigration and the damage to non-governmental organisations – 6 billion.

  14. HYPOTHETICAL COUNTER-CLAIMS • A general precondition to claim damages is the existence of an internationally wrongful act → Lithuania did not commit any wrongful act; • Under the general principle of law ex injuria jus non oritur the occupant can not obtain any legal right from the illegal occupation, including any property rights; • Even in case of state succession (which is not the elimination of the consequences of an illegal act) immovable State property of the predecessor State, situated in the territory to which state succession relates, should remain to the successor State (e.g., Art. 14 and 15 of the 1983 Vienna Convention on Succession of States in respect of States Property, Archives and Debts).

  15. ADMISSIBILITY OF LITHUANIA’S CLAIM FOR COMPENSATION • International responsibility is established immediately as between the two States when one State commits an internationally wrongful act against another State. • Claims of responsibility can be raised at different levels of government, and it is sufficient that the respondent State is aware of the claim as a result of communications from the claimant even in the form of press reports of speeches or meetings. Obviously, the Law (as a unilateral act of State which maintains the claim for compensation) is an act of significantly higher level. • Only the circumstances of the concrete case make it possible to determine whether the passage of time renders an application inadmissible.

  16. THE ROLE OF THE LAW ON COMPENSATION FOR DAMAGE National law: • Consolidatesthe will of Lithuanian people, expressed in the referendum of 14 June 1992; • Implementsa constitutional requirement that any programme document, especially if it lays down compulsory rules or instructions for the Government, has to be adopted by the Seimas in the form of law. International law: • Notification to Russiathatthereparationshould take theformofcompensationaswellasthattheclaimforcompensationremainsvalidinitsfullextent. However, no duty to adopt a special law in order to raise claim of responsibility for internationally wrongful act.

  17. THANK YOU FOR YOUR ATTENTION!

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