This chapter further examines the case for reparations through a restorative justice and human rights lens. In doing so, it also applies a critical criminological perspective to examining the nature and type of reparations and the purpose of reparations. This chapter draws on contemporary human rights and international criminal law to critically evaluate conceptions on repairing harm.

The chapter's discussion identifies and conceptualizes reparations as a human rights issue and draws on selected case law and judicial principles from the ICC, the ECtHR and the International Court of Justice (ICJ) to discuss issues surrounding remedying international crimes such as war crimes, genocide, unlawful discrimination and other human rights abuses including modern slavery, with a focus on how these might be remedied within contemporary justice systems.

While acknowledging that contemporary law cannot be retrospectively applied, this chapter identifies that reparations can take many forms from apology and state recognition of the harms caused by CAH like slavery, through to financial compensation, affirmative action or social rebuilding that contributes to social justice. The chapter also contains analysis using contemporary examples of reparations mechanisms to discuss how international principles could arguably be applied to the issue of ongoing reparations for slavery and its legacy of anti-Black racism.

Reparations and international law

Reparations arguably have a strong basis in international law since World War II. Governments may agree to reparations through political settlements in order ‘to draw a line under the past and provide new opportunities for victims’ (Moffett and Schwarz, 2018). Reparations, as a legal mechanism for resolving a dispute have the potential to provide for a practical remedy to an identified social or political need while also resolving individual or group rights to a remedy for harm directly caused to them. Du Plessis (2007) identifies that the language of international law (state responsibility, CAH, genocide) can also be invoked in respect of questions concerning state responsibility for restitution, compensation or ‘just satisfaction’.