In their analyses of specific cases involving armed conflict, the European Court of Human Rights and the Inter-American Court of Human Rights have acted as monitoring bodies for international humanitarian law (IHL) by factoring that body of law into their interpretation of human rights and State obligations set out in the European and American Conventions on Human Rights. In this article, the author argues that, in such cases, the two courts also acted as monitoring bodies for the rules of IHL designed to protect the dead and missing in both international and non-international armed conflicts. This monitoring function is apparent in the two courts’ judgments, which uphold the obligations of States to search for and identify the dead and missing in armed conflicts, to bury the remains of the dead and to investigate unlawful deaths and cases of forcible disappearance. The author concludes that not only has IHL bolstered the interpretation of the European and American Conventions on Human Rights, but that those two instruments and their interpretation have expanded the content and scope of the rules of IHL that protect the dead and missing in armed conflict.

This article brings together different strands of literature to explore how time operates in international law as a technique of inclusion and exclusion. The question of reparations for enduring colonial and ecological injustices provides a useful entry point to examine, at a more granular level, the temporal foundations of the field and their distributive outcomes. Concepts of restitution, compensation, satisfaction as well as the doctrine of causation in the law of state responsibility, encode a specific understanding of time. This understanding, I argue, is embedded in a modernist worldview characterised by linear, abstract and universal notions of time. Calls for reparatory justice for colonial and climate wrongs attempt to defy and interrupt law’s forward motion by binding together interconnected (though unequal) pasts, presents and futures. In examining how international law reacts to those claims, and manages the conflict between law’s temporal abstractions and the concrete tempos of those seeking redress, this article reinvigorates the conversation on the politics of time in international law.

There has been increasing attention both at national and international level to demands of reparations for historic injustices—colonialism, enslavement and the transatlantic chattel slave trade—and the role and relevance of international law in this context. A routinely identified legal obstacle to reparation demands is the doctrine of intertemporal law, which is generally interpreted to require past acts to be considered in the light of the law contemporary with them. This interpretation of the intertemporal doctrine has been contested more recently in international legal scholarship and practice, which both seek to instill an increased sense of ambiguity into the laws of the past, but crucially, this Article shows, these efforts do not extend this ambiguity to the doctrine of intertemporal law itself. This Article takes a closer look at the intertemporal doctrine and interrogates these varying interpretations. It analyses both conventional and critical international legal scholarship on the intertemporal doctrine in the context of reparation claims for historic injustices and contrasts them to the scholarly reception of the intertemporal doctrine in the past and selected cases from the International Court of Justice (“ICJ”), arguing that whilst an often–unquestioned static understanding of intertemporality prevails, more dynamic interpretations of the doctrine also exist. By building on these legal arguments that enshrine a less static relationship between past and present laws within the discipline of international law—including ICJ decisions, judges’ dissenting opinions, states’ arguments, and critical legal scholarship—the Article defends a potentially emancipatory interpretive approach to the doctrine that could reframe it so as to support, rather than hinder, reparation claims for historic injustices in international law.

This paper contributes to an underdeveloped yet critical feature of international criminal law – victim assistance. With the creation of the ICC and the Trust Fund for Victims, the idea of victim assistance in situations of mass criminalities was provided an institutional backbone. However, much of its operational principles remain theoretically ill-defined. Through a methodological study of over a decade of assistance programmes administered by the Fund, this paper sheds light on some of the critical operational principles which have emerged in practice. Additionally, in light of these principles, this paper argues that there exist two major causes of ineffectiveness which hamper the Fund’s assistance work – first, the problem of defining its goals in definite, strategic terms, and second, the overlap between assistance mandate of the Fund and reparations regime of the ICC. It concludes by making course-correction suggestions for the Fund to chart a future towards an effective organization building.

This article estimates several causal counterfactual parameters of the effect of being an Historically Black College/University (HBCU) on college/university endowment, and on the probability of a college/university failing as a function of its financial health, which is proportional to endowment. Our various counterfactual causal parameter decomposition estimates suggest that the racial distinctiveness of HBCUs causes, and can account for cumulative HBCU/non-HBCU endowment disparities between $11.5 billion and $58.9 billion for the HBCUs in our estimating sample. This is consistent with, at least in part, racial discrimination against HBCUs in philanthropic endowment contributions/gifts. With respect to failure, as HBCU status contributes to higher failure probabilities that are a function of college/university financial health, reducing the HBCU/non-HBCU endowment disparity would also enhance the ability of HBCUs to continuously exist. We suggest two public policy interventions to close the endowment disparity. First, increase the tax subsidy for contributions/gifts to HBCUs relative to non-HBCUs, as a way to incentivize more gifts to HBCUs from wealthy foundations and individuals. Secondly, to the extent that the wealth of HBCU alumni—who give back to their alma mater at higher rates than their non-HBCU peers—has been constrained due to the legacy of Slavery and discrimination, a distribution of reparations to the descendants of Black American Slaves would close Black-White wealth disparities that could translate into larger endowment contributions/gifts from HBCU alumni.

This case note examines the International Court of Justice’s (ICJ) 2022 reparations judgment in Democratic Republic of the Congo v. Uganda, analyzing the Court’s legal reasoning, its evidentiary approach, and the implications for future reparations cases. The 2022 judgment follows the ICJ’s 2005 ruling that found Uganda responsible for violations of international law during its military intervention in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). Given the failure of negotiations between the parties, the ICJ determined the amount of reparations owed, awarding a global sum of $325 million – substantially lower than the DRC’s claim. The case addresses complex legal and evidentiary questions, including the causal link between Uganda’s wrongful acts and the damages claimed, the standard and burden of proof for reparations, and categorizing harm. The Court examined four heads of damage, which were damage to persons, damage to property, damage to natural resources and macroeconomic damage, dismissing the latter due to insufficient proof of causation. A key aspect of the judgment was the ICJ’s adoption of a global sum approach – an uncommon approach in the Court’s practice. This case note assesses the lack of clear reasoning and methodology for determining the exact amount awarded for each head of damage.

Additionally, the ICJ’s over-reliance on United Nations reports and its application of standards of proof raise concerns about consistency and clarity in reparations proceedings. This case sets a precedent for State responsibility in mass violations of international law but highlights challenges in quantifying harm and ensuring equitable reparations. The Court’s reasoning and methods in the case may influence future cases involving State responsibility, armed conflicts, and reparative justice under international law.

This article examines the role of international humanitarian law (IHL) in safeguarding artisanal fishing communities residing along the banks of the Magdalena River in Colombia after the recognition of the river as a rights-bearing entity1 and a victim of the armed conflict. The article also explores the potential of targeted peacebuilding interventions for achieving sustainable well-being, ecological restoration and enduring peace. Against the backdrop of historical conflict, the Magdalena River and its adjoining communities have suffered significant harm, requiring widespread reparations that go beyond immediate crisis management. The study proposes a comprehensive approach for achieving sustainable well-being, ecological restoration and enduring peace, acknowledging the complex connections between legal frameworks, environmental considerations and the cultural heritage of the riverine community.

In September 2023, the trial at Stockholm District Court against Orrön Energy (previously Lundin Energy) and two corporate directors for complicity in war crimes in Sudan between 1999 and 2003, started. The Lundin case is part of a trend of attempts to hold corporations criminally accountable for their alleged involvement in serious human rights abuses and provides a unique opportunity to assess the possibilities of such attempts in relation to the rights of the victims. This article analyzes how human rights obligations and the objectives of reparations for victims are satisfied by Swedish law and practice in the Lundin trial. It shows that while the law allows victims participating in trial to put forward civil claims, it denies this right to the large number of victims not participating, and the decision early in the Lundin proceedings to separate damage claims from the criminal trial has left the participating victims effectively denied reparations.