Haunted by Debt: Calculating the Cost of Loss and Violence in Turkey

he state eluded accountability for violations of citizenship rights by crafting legal devices that would respond to claims of material damages and losses under the scrutiny of the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR)2 In 2004, the Turkish parliament passed the "Law no: 5233 on Compensation for Losses resulting from Terrorism and the Fight Against Terrorism". Evaluating the mechanisms and results of these assessments, the ECHR ruled that the Compensation Law provided an effective domestic remedy and that applicants must exhaust these procedures before filing action in Strasbourg, The ECHR then returned all pending cases.7 The Compensation Law thus became an effective tool for re-establishing the credibility of the Turkish state in the international arena.8 The state reconciled with global standards of accountability and created internal mechanisms designed to cut offaccess to international institutions of justice. According to human rights lawyers, despite the complicated implications of these practices, the state is not breaking the law. [...]this essay is dedicated to the memory of the late Tahir Elçi, the prominent human rights lawyer who spent his life for the recognition and acknowledgement of the loss and disappearances in the war between the PKK and the Turkish state and who was shot dead while calling for an end to violence in the very same protracted war.