State of Repair: Content and Strength of the International Norm of Reparations

• In Event: The Nexus between Transitional Justice and International Norms

Abstract

The practice of reparations is a key element in the transitional justice normative regime, which embodies principled ideas about the value and importance of seeking justice, truth, and repair in the aftermath of violence and human rights violations. In the decades since the precedent-setting German reparations program for Nazi atrocities (the 1952 Luxembourg Agreement), there have been significant changes in expectations about and practices regarding reparations, which refers to the principled idea that a responsible party should pay monetary or financial compensation to victim(s) of gross human rights violations. There is, however, a substantial lack of consensus about the timing and substance of these changes, as well as about its strength and content today. This chapter traces and evaluates the development of the international norm of reparations over the past seventy-five years, analyzing changes over this period in its content and its strength. While existing scholarship points to five content changes in the practice of reparations over the post-World War II period, our analysis suggests that not all of these changes in practices are reflected in collective expectations about appropriate forms of repair in response to atrocity. The chapter also assesses changes in the norm’s strength over the course of the post-World War II period, finding that the norm is moderately strong with moderate concordance and low to moderate institutionalization.

Authors

• Michal Ben-Josef Hirsch, Suffolk University

• Jennifer M. Dixon, Villanova University