Findings from the Literature Review

The UN Principles and Guidelines on the Right to a Remedy and Reparation for Victims of Gross and Serious Violations of International Humanitarian Law, adopted by the UN General Assembly in 2005, affirm the primacy of restitution as the key remedy, to ‘restore the victim to the original situation before the gross violation … occurred’ (United Nations General Assembly 2005, p. [...] Appleby & Davis have argued that First Nations people involved in the Regional Dialogues and developing the Uluru Statement from the Heart exhibited a “sophisticated, nuanced and meaningful” understanding of the possibilities of truth-telling as an essential aspect of the redefinition of the political 5 relationship between First Nations peoples and the state (Appleby & Davis 2018, p. [...] Characterising previous truth-telling initiatives in Australia as “ad hoc and piecemeal”, Appleby & Davis argue that First Nations people involved in the Regional Dialogues and developing the Uluru Statement from the Heart exhibited a “sophisticated, nuanced and meaningful” understanding of the possibilities of truth-telling as an essential aspect of the redefinition of the political relationship. [...] The Uluru Statement called for a Makarrata Commission to be established to oversee ‘agreement-making’ and ‘truth-telling’ processes between governments and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples; as part of its commitment to the full implementation of the Uluru Statement from the Heart, the current federal government committed $5.8 million in funding in 2022 to commence the work of establis. [...] The anger and denial of some settlers in response to the rise of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander histories in the latter half of the 20th century, leading to revised understandings of Australia’s past (which could also be characterised as the “return of the repressed”) highlights the work remaining to be done to fully “come to terms” with Australia’s troubling history (Attwood 2017, p.