Abstract Most of this book is concerned with legal and political responses to the question of impunity, both as a matter of general international law and of national experiences. The present chapter looks at the normative bases for combating impunity. As a general proposition, societies may view the question from the point of view of the offender—which raises the general question of how and why a society punishes—and from the point of view of the victim, raising a series of issues around redress. The inquiries are distinct but not separate because punishment of offenders may itself be a form of redress for victims, whereas measures like truth telling, aimed at redress, may have punitive aspects.