The Case for Transformative Reparations: In Pursuit of Structural Socio-Economic Reform in Post-Conflict Societies

Abstract

This article evaluates the pillar of reparations within transitional justice and contributes to debates about the significance of structural socio-economic reform in post-conflict societies. Drawing on the experiences of South Africa and Tunisia, I argue that transitional justice must advocate a praxis of transformative reparations. Transformative reparations, working alongside complementary mechanisms within a long-term transitional justice agenda, can help to enable the transformation of groups, communities, and regions out of generational cycles of poverty, discrimination, and exclusion. Those engaged and active in such processes are thus afforded the resources and centrally positioned to (self-)empower the renegotiation of power relations that facilitated past and ongoing structural socio-economic violations.