The Promise and Practice of Victim Reparations in International Criminal Justice

Reparations are often seen as a central aspect of a more victim-oriented approach to justice and peace in the wake of mass atrocities. In what can be described as a potentially significant shift in which international criminal law is conceived, the International Criminal Court (ICC) became the first international criminal justice body to which individual victims of mass crimes could submit claims for reparations. Other internationalized criminal courts now also consider reparations for victims, most notably the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia. Yet, the role and extent of reparations in international criminal justice remain contested among scholars, practitioners and activists, and considerable uncertainty surrounds how these reparations schemes work.

Christoph Sperfeldt will examine the practice of reparations in the first cases before the ICC and the ECCC and tells a dynamic story of how these courts have activated and interpreted their reparations mandates. He concludes with some observations emerging from the experience thus far, which reveal the unsettled nature of reparations and some of the larger fault lines in post-conflict justice more generally.