Hostname: page-component-74d7c59bfc-dmlsr Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2026-02-05T13:35:04.721Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Symposium on Colombia’s special jurisdiction for peace

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 February 2026

Juana Inés Acosta-López Open the ORCID record for Juana Inés Acosta-López [Opens in a new window]  and
Mariana Chacón Lozano
Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

An abstract is not available for this content. As you have access to this content, full HTML content is provided on this page. A PDF of this content is also available in through the ‘Save PDF’ action button.

Information

Type
Editorial
Information
International Review of the Red Cross , First View , pp. 1 - 13
Creative Commons
Creative Common License - CCCreative Common License - BY
This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0), which permits unrestricted re-use, distribution and reproduction, provided the original article is properly cited.
Copyright
© The Author(s), 2026. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of International Committee of the Red Cross.

The terrible consequences and ferocity of today’s armed conflicts could make one think that international humanitarian law (IHL) has lost its protective character and its legitimacy – yet there is still global consensus around IHL and the Geneva Conventions, and their application continues to protect and to save lives, often silently. Furthermore, IHL is also being used in novel ways, in connection with other national and international legal frameworks and in post-conflict settings, to address the consequences of armed conflicts that have blighted entire countries for decades. Colombia is a notable example.

In 2016, following four years of negotiations,Footnote 1 a referendumFootnote 2 and a renegotiation process,Footnote 3 the Colombian government and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia – People’s Army (Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia – Ejército del Pueblo, FARC-EP) signed the Final Agreement for Ending the Conflict and Building a Stable and Lasting Peace (Acuerdo Final para la Terminación del Conflicto y la Construcción de una Paz Estable y Duradera, Final Agreement).Footnote 4 The Agreement comprised six main points: comprehensive rural reform; guarantees regarding political participation; mechanisms to ensure demobilization and transition to the end of conflict; the fight against drugs; the implementation of a comprehensive system for truth, justice, reparation and guarantees of non-recurrence; and implementation, verification and follow-up regarding the content of the Agreement.

The Comprehensive System of Truth, Justice, Reparation and Non-Recurrence (Comprehensive Peace System)Footnote 5 consists of three mechanisms: the Commission for the Clarification of Truth, Coexistence and Non-Recurrence (2017–22),Footnote 6 the Search Unit for Disappeared Persons (Unidad de Búsqueda de Personas dadas por Desaparecidas, UBPD)Footnote 7 and the Special Jurisdiction for Peace (Jurisdicción Especial para la Paz, JEP).Footnote 8 In addition, there is the Administrative Reparations Programme (Programa Administrativo de Reparaciones),Footnote 9 one of the most ambitious in the world in terms of size and scope.Footnote 10

The JEP is the judicial component of the Comprehensive Peace System. As will be discussed in greater detail below, its unique character, the investigative procedures it uses, the scope of its mandate, the topics it addresses and its direct application of IHL make it an innovative sui generis jurisdiction and essential to the study of transitional justice. Furthermore, analysis of this jurisdiction is fundamental to understanding the development of IHL, its links to peacebuilding, and the relationship between justice and reconciliation following armed conflict. It is for these reasons that the Review has chosen to dedicate part of this issue to a symposium of articles on the JEP.

Mandate and structure of the JEP

The JEP was formally created under Legislative Act 01 of 2017,Footnote 11 and it commenced operations on 15 March 2018. Its purpose is to prosecute those most responsible for the most serious and representative crimes prior to 1 December 2016 during the non-international armed conflict (NIAC) between the Colombian government and the FARC–EP. In particular, the JEP has competence regarding such serious violations as war crimes, crimes against humanity, extrajudicial executions, forced disappearance, sexual violence, illegal recruitment of minors and forced displacement. Its mandate has been chosen to fulfil the rights of the victims to truth, justice, reparations and non-recurrence, contributing to the identification of patterns of macro-criminality and to the consolidation of stable and lasting peace, after more than five decades of conflict.

The JEP has preferential and exclusive jurisdiction over conduct committed in the context of the armed conflict by members of the FARC–EP and by members of the Colombian armed and security forces. As parties to the Final Agreement, both categories are subject to a mandatory duty to appear before the JEP.Footnote 12

By contrast, the JEP may also exercise jurisdiction over State officials other than members of the armed and security forces, as well as over civilian third parties. Appearance before the JEP is voluntary for these latter categories, as they are not parties to the Final Agreement and are therefore not bound by its jurisdictional obligations, even though they may opt in to the system in order to obtain its conditional legal benefits.Footnote 13

The JEP is an ad hoc tribunal,Footnote 14 operating outside the ordinary judicial system and exercising jurisdiction with constitutional rank and guarantees of independence comparable to those of the Colombian High Courts.Footnote 15 In view of its administrative, budgetary and technical autonomy, it includes all the components of a judiciary system: a Governing Body, a Presidency and a Peace Tribunal, which includes Trial Chambers and various other chambers (Recognition of Truth and Responsibility; Amnesty or Pardon; Definition of Judicial Situations), plus an Appellate Division. It also has an Investigation and Prosecution Unit and an Executive and Judicial Secretariat, to enable it to perform its administrative and judicial tasks.Footnote 16

What makes the JEP different from other courts?

Discussions regarding the model of justice under the peace negotiations with the FARC–EP started long before the signing of the Final Agreement. A package of constitutional reforms entitled the Legal Framework for Peace (Marco Jurídico para la Paz) was approved in 2012, incorporating instruments of transitional justice into the Constitution and enabling the application of prioritization and selection criteria, so as to focus on investigating, prosecuting and punishing those most responsible for international crimes.

This legal framework was informed by lessons learned from Colombia’s earlier transitional justice experience under the Justice and Peace model established by Law 975 of 2005. That framework was designed primarily to facilitate the demobilization of paramilitary groups through reduced sentences conditioned on truth-telling and reparations.Footnote 17 In practice, however, it exposed serious institutional and procedural shortcomings, including the system’s inability to address the full scale of conflict-related crimes, prolonged delays in judicial proceedings, and significant obstacles to effective victim participation. These limitations directly influenced the design of the JEP, which was conceived as a more selective and focused system, relying on prioritization and selection criteria to concentrate investigative and judicial efforts on those most responsible for international crimes while improving procedural efficiency and victims’ access to justice.Footnote 18

In contrast to ordinary jurisdictions and many other transitional justice mechanisms,Footnote 19 the JEP is designed to adjudicate serious conflict-related violence through a pattern-based, victim-centred process that applies relevant norms of IHL, international human rights law (IHRL) and international criminal law as part of its substantive framework. It combines this legal approach with a conditionality regime and a differentiated system of sanctions – some of which are restorative and not necessarily custodial – aimed at securing truth, reparations and guarantees of non-recurrence alongside accountability. In this sense, the JEP constitutes a sui generis jurisdiction, innovative in the way that it links criminal responsibility, truth-seeking, reparations and reconciliation within a single institutional framework.

The JEP’s design and practice are also informed by Latin America’s broader transitional justice experience, where truth-seeking, reparations and (selective) criminal accountability have been developed in parallel with robust victims’ rights standards.Footnote 20 In this regional context, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACtHR) has played a particularly influential role by clarifying the limits of amnesties in relation to serious international crimes and by consolidating States’ duties to investigate, prosecute and remedy gross human rights violations.Footnote 21 At the same time, the IACtHR’s jurisprudence on large-scale and systematic patterns of violence has helped frame the legal analysis of “macro-criminality” and structural impunity. This legal and institutional background provides an important lens for understanding the JEP’s focus on patterns, representative cases and conditionality-based incentives, as well as the centrality it accords to victims’ rights within a peace-oriented accountability model.Footnote 22

A restorative logic centred on victims

As part of the Comprehensive Peace System, the JEP’s principles include the centrality of the victims, which incorporates the principle of honouring their rights to truth, justice, reparations and non-recurrence. The JEP also has the duty to establish the complete truth as to what happened as a result of the armed conflict.Footnote 23

The JEP and the Comprehensive Peace System place “special emphasis on restorative and remedial measures”,Footnote 24 seeking to repair the harm caused and to ensure that the victims receive reparations, and avoiding justice being limited to retributive sanctions. This translates into the active and cross-cutting inclusion of victims in proceedings, with the possibility of addressing the defendants directly – the defendants listen to the testimonies of those affected by the conduct that they are alleged to have committed. It also means that one of the main objectives of the process of acknowledging responsibility is to establish the truth – that is, to describe the most serious violations of IHL, IHRL and international criminal law – both for the victims and for the collective memory of Colombia. So far, the JEP has accredited more than 350,000 persons as victims.Footnote 25

Sentences imposed by the JEP are not necessarily custodial. The sanctioning regime established under the Final Agreement differentiates between three types of penalties, depending primarily on whether and when those appearing before the JEP acknowledge responsibility.Footnote 26

Where responsibility is acknowledged fully and at an early stage of the proceedings, the JEP may impose so-called “special sanctions” (sanciones propias). These sanctions combine restorative and retributive elements: they require concrete actions aimed at repairing the harm caused to victims and affected communities, while also entailing effective restrictions on rights and freedoms, albeit of a non-custodial nature.Footnote 27

By contrast, individuals who do not acknowledge responsibility or who do so only at a later stage of the proceedings may be subject to alternative or ordinary sanctions, which include custodial sentences involving deprivation of liberty. This differentiated sanctioning system reflects the JEP’s core objectives of promoting truth, accountability and reparations, while reserving imprisonment for those who fail to contribute meaningfully to these aims.Footnote 28

The JEP’s differentiated sanctioning regime, particularly the use of non-custodial sanctions with a strong restorative component, has enhanced the potential impact of its proceedings and decisions on the victims and on Colombian society more broadly. At the same time, this design has generated significant institutional and procedural challenges that are intrinsic to the JEP’s mandate as a transitional justice mechanism. These challenges include not only the need to process and assess an unprecedented volume of diverse information originating from all regions of the country and spanning more than five decades of armed conflict, but also the practical implementation of restorative sanctions across the country, given that the JEP’s macro-cases are designed to address patterns of criminality with nationwide scope and to generate tangible positive impact in the affected regions.

Investigating patterns: The macro-case approach

To address the immense challenge of collecting and organizing information on victims, civil society organizations, judicial bodies with previous proceedings linked to the armed conflict, and the defendants themselves, Legislative Act 01 established prioritization criteria “based on the seriousness and representativeness of the crimes and the degree of responsibility for them”.Footnote 29

In practice, applying these prioritization criteria required the JEP to move beyond a strictly individual, case-by-case approach and to adopt an analytical framework focused on patterns of criminal behaviour and their consequences over time, grouping such patterns by region, by type of criminal conduct, or by type of alleged perpetrator. On this basis, the JEP has structured its work around a limited number of large-scale proceedings, currently articulated in eleven “macro-cases”. While the opening of additional macro-cases remains formally possible, the advanced stage of the JEP’s mandate (which is subject to constitutionally defined sunset deadlines and, on the Court’s reading, runs – at the latest – through 15 January 2033)Footnote 30 and the creation of two so-called “umbrella” cases (Macro-Cases 08 and 10) designed to encompass patterns of criminality not addressed elsewhere make the initiation of further macro-cases unlikely. For the sake of completeness, all existing macro-cases are listed below.Footnote 31

  • • 01: Hostage-taking, grave deprivation of liberty and other concurrent crimes committed by the FARC-EP.

  • • 02: The situation in the municipalities of Tumaco, Ricaurte and Barbacoas and in the department of Nariño.

  • • 03: Murder and forced disappearance presented by State agents as deaths in combat (“false positives”).

  • • 04: The situation in the Urabá region.

  • • 05: The situation in the region of northern Cauca and the Cauca valley.

  • • 06: Victimization of members of the Unión Patriótica.

  • • 07: Recruitment and use of girls and boys in the armed conflict.

  • • 08: Crimes not eligible for amnesty committed by the armed and security forces and by agents of the State in conjunction with paramilitary groups.

  • • 09: Crimes against ethnic peoples and territories.

  • • 10: Crimes not eligible for amnesty committed by the former FARC–EP in the framework of the Colombian armed conflict.

  • • 11: Gender-based violence, including sexual and reproductive violence, plus crimes committed as a result of prejudice.

On 16 September 2025, the JEP issued its first restorative sentence in Macro-Case 01, concerning the systematic practice of hostage-taking and other forms of severe deprivation of liberty carried out by the FARC-EP between 1993 and 2012.Footnote 32 The case addresses a nationwide policy adopted and implemented by the organization’s former Secretariat which the JEP characterized as constituting war crimes and crimes against humanity. Seven former members of the FARC-EP Secretariat were declared ultimately responsible for this policy and formally acknowledged their responsibility for the crimes committed, thereby becoming eligible for the imposition of sanciones propias.Footnote 33 A more detailed legal and factual analysis of the JEP’s qualification of these detentions as hostage-taking under IHL is developed by Julieta Lemaitre Ripoll in her contribution to this symposium.Footnote 34

On 18 September 2025, the JEP issued its second sentencing decision in Macro-Case 03, which examines the widespread and systematic killing of civilians by members of the armed forces who subsequently presented the deaths as combat casualties – a practice commonly referred to as “false positives”. The case focuses on patterns of criminal conduct attributable to State agents and classifies the acts under investigation as crimes against humanity. While several of the accused acknowledged responsibility (and therefore will be eligible for sanciones propias), others refused to do so. As a result, those latter individuals will face adversarial proceedings and, if found responsible, may be subject to ordinary custodial sentences of up to twenty years’ deprivation of liberty.Footnote 35 The broader implications of this case for accountability of State agents and differentiated sanctions within the JEP are examined in greater depth elsewhere in this symposium.

Direct application of IHL and other sources of international law

The JEP has constitutionalFootnote 36 and legalFootnote 37 authority to directly apply IHRL, IHL and international criminal law in assessing the conduct of defendants. Given that IHL is not designed for determining direct criminal responsibility, the Colombian Constitutional Court has clarified that IHL is of value in giving content to certain acts that constitute war crimes.Footnote 38

Such authority is notable because it is expressly conferred by the constitutional text, a feature with no clear historical precedent in Colombia. Unlike other courts, which typically engage with international law through interpretation based on self-attributed authority or indirect constitutional competences, the JEP’s mandate explicitly authorizes the direct application of IHRL, IHL and international criminal law as part of its substantive framework for investigating and adjudicating serious violations committed during the armed conflict. In this sense, the JEP represents a novel institutional configuration, and its design has contributed to broader debates on the scope, limits and transformative potential of transitional justice in post-conflict contexts.Footnote 39 In exercising this mandate, the JEP has encountered legal and methodological challenges including questions of sources (treaty and customary rules), temporal applicability, and the reconciliation of international standards with the principle of legality and due process within the dialogical procedure. In practice, some of the JEP’s legal qualifications and methodological choices have therefore been debated and tested by different procedural actors (including defendants, victims’ representatives and the Office of the Public Prosecutor), reflecting the JEP’s role as a forum in which international norms are operationalized in a transitional justice setting.

A particularly illustrative example, developed in detail by Judge Lily Andrea Rueda Guzmán and Senior Law Clerk César Augusto Rojas-Orozco in their contribution to this symposium,Footnote 40 concerns Macro-Case 07 on the recruitment and use of children, which has nationwide scope and examines not only recruitment but also a broader spectrum of violence suffered within the ranks. Guzmán and Rojas-Orozco’s analysis shows how the Chamber of Recognition of Truth and Responsibility addressed a core set of legal-qualification issues: determining the relevant age threshold for classifying child recruitment as a war crime, and articulating the relationship between the Rome Statute benchmark, later normative developments and Colombian criminal law, while preserving the principle of legality in criminal law and victims’ rights within a pattern-based investigation.

These interpretative debates do not detract from the JEP’s legitimacy; rather, they help to explain why its continued functioning – including the territorial implementation of restorative sanctions – is likely to remain under international observation. Importantly, there are already significant indications of international confidence in Colombia’s accountability pathway: the Office of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) has concluded the preliminary examination of the situation in Colombia and has formalized a framework of cooperation grounded in positive complementarity, which expressly provides that the Office of the Prosecutor will continue to follow relevant national proceedings.Footnote 41 In parallel, the United Nations (UN), including through the Security CouncilFootnote 42 and the UN Verification Mission,Footnote 43 continues to monitor the implementation of the Final Agreement and Colombia’s broader accountability process.

Granting the broadest possible amnesty

One of the most distinctive features of the Colombian model of transitional justice is its pursuit of the broadest possible amnesty at the end of a NIAC, as reflected in Article 6(5) of Additional Protocol II to the Geneva Conventions (AP II), which provides that the authorities in power shall endeavour to grant the broadest possible amnesty to persons who participated in the conflict or were detained for reasons related to it.Footnote 44 However, customary IHL – applicable in NIACs, including those governed only by Article 3 common to the four Geneva Conventions – clarifies that such amnesties must not extend to persons suspected or accused of war crimes, or convicted thereof.Footnote 45

In its jurisprudence on the Legal Framework for Peace, the Colombian Constitutional Court treated Article 6(5) of AP II as an expression of the flexibility of IHL at the end of a NIAC. In Judgment C-579/13, reviewing Legislative Act 01 of 2012, the Court stressed that the State’s duty to investigate, prosecute and – where appropriate – punish serious violations of human rights and IHL remains a constitutional pillar, but that in contexts of conflict termination, it must be read together with the IHL guidance that the authorities “shall endeavour to grant the broadest possible amnesty” at the cessation of hostilities. On that basis, and relying as well on customary IHL, the Court clarified that broad amnesties may be permissible for conflict-related offences, provided that they do not obstruct accountability for international crimes: at a minimum, the State must investigate and, where appropriate, prosecute and punish war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide. The Court distinguished this approach from amnesty debates that arise in transitions from dictatorship to democracy.Footnote 46

Also, in reviewing the constitutionality of Law 1820 of 2016 (Amnesty, Pardon and Special Criminal Treatment Act), the Constitutional Court interpreted Article 6(5) of AP II in light of States’ obligations under customary IHL. Relying in particular on Rules 158 and 159 of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) Customary Law Study,Footnote 47 the Court clarified that the encouragement to grant the broadest possible amnesty at the end of a NIAC cannot be understood as permitting amnesties for war crimes or crimes against humanity, given the State’s duty to investigate and, where appropriate, prosecute such offences, in line with the Rome Statute of the ICC.Footnote 48

On that basis, the Court upheld the constitutionality of Law 1820, while reaffirming two core principles: first, the non-negotiable obligation of the State to investigate and prosecute serious international crimes, and second, the permissibility of prioritization and selection criteria to focus prosecutorial efforts on those most responsible.Footnote 49

As Judge Marcela Giraldo Muñoz explains in her article for this symposium,Footnote 50 the Amnesty or Pardon Chamber has granted the broadest possible amnesty to date, applying strict criteria of temporality, material scope and personal responsibility. In doing so, the Chamber has examined and decided upon hundreds of requests submitted by those appearing before the JEP seeking amnesty, while progressively refining the distinction between conduct eligible for amnesty, on the one hand, and war crimes and crimes against humanity, on the other. Through its practice, the JEP has contributed to the development and clarification of IHL in complex areas – including the legal classification of the use of anti-personnel mines, acts of terrorism and crimes related to rebellion – and has facilitated the legal and social reintegration of former FARC-EP combatants, insofar as the granting of amnesty removes criminal liability for conduct covered by the amnesty regime and enables their return to civilian life within the bounds of the law. More broadly, by operationalizing a differentiated accountability framework – broad amnesties for political and related offences coupled with the exclusion of war crimes and crimes against humanity – the JEP’s amnesty practice has helped translate IHL’s end-of-hostilities logic into domestic transitional justice while preserving core obligations of accountability for serious IHL violations.

Conditionality and the cross-compliance framework

The cross-compliance regime is another distinctive component of the JEP. It is linked to the concept of amnesty and forms one of the pillars of the Comprehensive Peace System. This regime establishes that no benefits may be granted or maintained without compliance with strict conditions: full disclosure of the truth, effective contribution to victim reparations, guarantees of non-recurrence and collaboration with the UBPD. In the case of former members of the FARC–EP, enjoyment of these benefits is also conditional on permanently laying down arms, the disengagement and release of illegally recruited minors, and making a complete return to civilian life.Footnote 51

Taken together, conditional amnesty and the cross-compliance regime give concrete effect to the logic reflected in Article 6(5) of AP II and customary rules on amnesties at the end of a NIAC, while ensuring that accountability and victims’ rights remain central. Their relevance lies not only in excluding war crimes and crimes against humanity from amnesty, but also in making eligibility for, and the maintenance of, benefits contingent on compliance with strict obligations. The Colombian Constitutional Court has endorsed this architecture in its review of the transitional constitutional framework and of the implementing legislation on amnesties and the JEP, emphasizing that differentiated treatment and broad amnesties for political and related offences are constitutionally acceptable only insofar as they do not obstruct the investigation and prosecution of crimes under international law, and are coupled with enforceable conditions that protect victims’ rights.Footnote 52 In this sense, conditionality operates as the legal mechanism that aligns reintegration incentives with truth, reparation and non-recurrence, and thus underpins the credibility of the broader transitional justice system – particularly in a context where serious armed violence and humanitarian consequences persist in several regionsFootnote 53 and the effectiveness of the model depends, in practice, on consistent monitoring and enforcement of compliance.

The authors taking part in this symposium have direct knowledge of the JEP and have directly developed the topics mentioned in this editorial. It is a privilege that most of the authors are JEP judges who have had to navigate the dilemmas of working for a jurisdiction with such a complex and important mandate. Judge Roberto Vidal López, president of the JEP between 2022 and 2024, gives an interview in which he sets out his perspective on the peculiarities of the JEP, its great advances and the challenges that it continues to face. Judge Marcela Giraldo Muñoz delves into issues specifically related to the granting of amnesties and the legal, pragmatic and moral questions that had to be addressed in responding to requests for amnesty from those appearing before the court. Judge Julieta Lemaitre Ripoll shares the reasoning of the JEP’s Chamber of Justice in determining how the conduct of the FARC–EP Secretariat fits the definition of hostage-taking under IHL and the challenges that the Chamber faced in reaching the conclusions stated in the judgment. As mentioned above, Judge Lily Andrea Rueda Guzmán and Senior Law Clerk César Augusto Rojas-Orozco describe the national and international legal bases on which they concluded that the FARC–EP had committed the war crime of recruiting minors. Finally, Professor Lucas Martinez-Villalba of Tecnológico de Monterrey explores how dignity can be restored through the recognition of rights for fishing communities on the Magdalena River in Colombia.

Each article provides an analysis of the role that IHL can play in a post-conflict context and in the application of justice by the JEP. The articles identify contemporary standards, push boundaries and fill gaps that still exist in international law, in particular by examining various sources of both international law (including customary international law) and national law. Finally, they share informed testimony based on facts gathered directly from actors connected to the armed conflict between the FARC–EP and the Colombian government over more than fifty years. This provides an invaluable perspective on the behaviour of armed and other actors in Colombia, the prolonged suffering caused by armed conflicts, and the ways in which these conflicts have influenced and continue to influence Colombian social, political and legal dynamics.

Footnotes

*

Juana Acosta-López is an Associate Professor and Director of the Master’s Programme in International Law at Universidad de La Sabana, Colombia, and holds a PhD in law. Her academic and professional work focuses on international law, international humanitarian law and transitional justice, with sustained engagement in Colombia’s transitional justice model from multiple perspectives. She participated in Colombia’s peace negotiations as part of the Office of the High Commissioner for Peace, has worked on the defence of the Colombian transitional justice framework before the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, and has served as a conjuez (alternate judge) of the Peace Tribunal of the Special Jurisdiction for Peace. She is a member of the Editorial Board of the Review.

**

Mariana Chacón Lozano was the Deputy Head of Delegation and Regional Legal Coordinator at the ICRC’s Regional Delegation in Algeria between 2024 and 2025. She was also the Operational Legal Coordinator for the ICRC in Colombia between 2020 and 2024. She was previously the ICRC’s Operational Legal Coordinator in Ukraine (2018–20) and Iraq (2015–17), as well as Deputy Protection Coordinator for the Missing in Ukraine (2017–18). Between 2011 and 2015 she was the Legal Adviser at the ICRC’s Regional Delegation in Lima, covering Bolivia, Ecuador and Peru. She holds a master’s degree in human rights at the Pontifical Catholic University of Peru, where she concluded her law studies as well. She is the author or co-author of various articles on international human rights law, international humanitarian law and transitional justice.

The advice, opinions and statements contained in this article are those of the author/s and do not necessarily reflect the views of the ICRC. The ICRC does not necessarily represent or endorse the accuracy or reliability of any advice, opinion, statement or other information provided in this article.

References

1 Formal peace negotiations between the Colombian government and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia – People’s Army (Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia – Ejército del Pueblo, FARC-EP) began in 2012 as part of a structured dialogue process aimed at ending the armed conflict between the two parties. “Colombia’s 2012–2016 Peace Talks: Fact Sheet”, Colombia Reports, 25 September 2016, available at: https://colombiareports.com/colombia-peace-talks-fact-sheet/ (all internet references were accessed in December 2025).

2 The dialogue phase ended on 24 August 2016 and the parties signed the Final Agreement for Ending the Conflict and Building a Stable and Lasting Peace (Final Agreement) in Cartagena on 26 September. The president of Colombia called a referendum, held on 2 October, to allow the Colombian people to approve the Final Agreement. 50.21% rejected the Agreement and 49.79% approved it. Ibid.

3 Following rejection of the initial agreement, the president set up a space for participation and dialogue with the citizens of Colombia, so that those who had campaigned for a “no” vote could submit their proposals. The deadline for submission of proposals was 20 October 2016. The following day, negotiations reopened between the government and the FARC-EP, with a view to incorporating the proposed changes into the agreement. This post-referendum phase and the substance of the renegotiations are analyzed in detail by advisers to the government negotiating team in Andrés Bermúdez Liévano (ed.), Los debates de La Habana: Una mirada desde adentro, Fondo de Capital Humano para la Transición Colombiana and Instituto para las Transiciones Integrales, Bogotá, 2018.

4 Final Agreement for Ending the Conflict and Building a Stable and Lasting Peace, 24 November 2016 (Final Agreement), available at: https://portalparalapaz.gov.co/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/3Acuerdo-Final-ing-web.pdf.

5 The Comprehensive Peace System was incorporated into the Colombian Constitution in 2017. Congress of Colombia, Legislative Act 01, 4 April 2017 (Legislative Act 01), Art. 1, available at: www.funcionpublica.gov.co/eva/gestornormativo/norma.php?i=80615.

6 See the Commission’s website, available at: www.comisiondelaverdad.co.

7 See the UBPD website, available at: https://unidadbusqueda.gov.co/.

8 See the JEP website, available at: www.jep.gov.co.

9 These measures are governed by Colombia’s Victims and Land Restitution Law (Law 1448 of 2011). In its Judgment C-588/19 of 5 December 2019, the Colombian Constitutional Court held that this statutory framework is directly linked to – and gives concrete effect to – the reparations component of the Comprehensive Peace System.

10 The Colombian reparations programme aims to serve a far broader and larger number of victims than any other reparations programme in the Transitional Justice Evaluation Tools database, both in absolute terms and relative to population size. TJET, “Colombia”, 2026, available at: https://transitionaljusticedata.org/en/Americas/Colombia.html.

11 Legislative Act 01, above note 5, Transitory Arts 1, 5.

12 Ibid., Transitory Arts 5, 16.

13 Ibid., Transitory Art. 16. See also Republic of Colombia, Statutory Law No. 1957, 6 June 2019 (JEP Statutory Law), Art. 63.

14 Legislative Act 01, above note 5, Transitory Art. 5.

15 Ibid., Transitory Arts 1, 5. See also Constitutional Court of Colombia, Judgment C-674/17, 14 November 2017, affirming that the institutional design of the JEP guarantees its independence through administrative, budgetary and technical autonomy, consistent with the constitutional standards applicable to judicial bodies.

16 Legislative Act 01, above note 5, Transitory Arts 5, 7, 12. See also JEP Statutory Law, above note 13, Arts 79–112.

17 Republic of Colombia, Law No. 975, 25 July 2005 (Justice and Peace Law); Constitutional Court of Colombia, Judgment C-370/06, 18 May 2006.

18 Juana Acosta-López and María del Rosario Acosta López (eds), Justicia transicional en Colombia: Una mirada desde distintas narrativas, 1st ed., Editorial Planeta Colombiana, Bogotá, 2023.

19 See e.g. Argentina’s Trial of the Juntas (1985), the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission (1995–2002), Peru’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission (2001–03), the Special Court for Sierra Leone (2002–13), the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (2006–22), and Guatemala’s High Risk Courts (since 2009).

20 Naomi Roht-Arriaza, “Transitional Justice in Latin America”, in Jens Meierhenrich, Alexander Laban Hinton and Lawrence Douglas (eds), The Oxford Handbook of Transitional Justice, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2023; Elin Skaar, Jemima García-Godos and Cath Collins (eds), Transitional Justice in Latin America: The Uneven Road from Impunity towards Accountability, Routledge, Abingdon, 2016; Kathryn Sikkink, The Justice Cascade: How Human Rights Prosecutions Are Changing World Politics, W. W. Norton, New York, 2011.

21 IACtHR, Barrios Altos v. Peru, Judgment (Merits), Series C, No. 75, 14 March 2001; IACtHR, Gelman v. Uruguay, Judgment (Merits and Reparations), Series C, No. 221, 24 February 2011; IACtHR, Massacres of El Mozote and Nearby Places v. El Salvador, Judgment (Merits, Reparations and Costs), Series C, No. 252, 25 October 2012; IACtHR, Herzog et al. v. Brazil, Judgment (Preliminary Objections, Merits, Reparations and Costs), Series C, No. 353, 15 March 2018.

22 IACtHR, Manuel Cepeda Vargas v. Colombia, Judgment (Preliminary Objections, Merits, Reparations and Costs), Series C, No. 213, 26 May 2010; IACtHR, Rochela Massacre v. Colombia, Judgment (Merits, Reparations and Costs), Series C, No. 163, 11 May 2007.

23 Legislative Act 01, above note 5, Transitory Arts 1, 5.

24 Ibid.

25 JEP, “Más de 350 mil víctimas son el corazón de la JEP y están en el centro de su labor judicial y restaurativa”, Communication No. 48, Bogotá, 9 April 2025, available at: www.jep.gov.co/Sala-de-Prensa/Paginas/mas_de_350_mil_victimas_son_el_corazon_de_la_jep_y_estan_en_el_centro_de_su_labor_judicial_y_restaurativa.aspx.

26 Final Agreement, above note 4, Section 5.1.2.

27 Legislative Act 01, above note 5, Transitory Art. 13. See also JEP Statutory Law, above note 13, Arts 126–129.

28 Legislative Act 01, above note 5, Transitory Art. 13. See also JEP Statutory Law, above note 13, Arts 130–143.

29 Legislative Act 01, above note 5, Transitional Art. 7.

30 See ibid., Transitional Art. 15(2), providing that the time limit for the JEP’s accusatory functions is ten years counted from the “effective entry into operation” of all of its chambers and sections, followed by a further five years to conclude its jurisdictional activity, with the latter period extendable by law if necessary. For the purposes of these constitutional deadlines, the Colombian Constitutional Court has held that the JEP’s “effective entry into operation” occurred on 15 January 2018 (Auto 488/19, 28 August 2019).

31 JEP, “Los casos de la JEP”, Bogotá, 2022, available at: www.jep.gov.co/Paginas/casos.aspx.

32 JEP, Macro-Case 01, Judgment TP SeRVR-RC-ST-001-2025, 16 September 2025, available at: https://relatoria.jep.gov.co/searchproviapi/Sentencia_TP-SeRVR-RC-ST-001-2025_16-septiembre-2025.

33 Unit for Implementation of the Peace Agreement, “Jurisdicción Especial para la Paz dicta primera sentencia al secretariado de las FARC por los delitos de secuestro”, news release, 16 September 2025, available at: https://portalparalapaz.gov.co/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/20250916ComunicadoPrimeraSentenciaJEP-1.pdf.

34 See the article by Julieta Lemaitre Ripoll in this issue of the Review: Julieta Lemaitre Ripoll, “When Is Detention by Non-State Actors a War Crime? The Special Jurisdiction for Peace’s Decision on Hostage-Taking by the FARC-EP”, International Review of the Red Cross, Vol. 107, No. 930, 2025.

35 Valentina Parada Lugo, “La sentencia de la JEP por ‘falsos positivos’ en el Caribe abre paso a una cadena de sanciones”, El País, 19 September 2025, available at: https://elpais.com/america-colombia/2025-09-19/la-sentencia-de-la-jep-por-falsos-positivos-en-el-caribe-abre-paso-a-una-cadena-de-sanciones.html.

36 Legislative Act 01, above note 5, title: “Through which a chapter of transitional provisions is created in the Constitution for the ending of the armed conflict and the building of a stable and lasting peace and laying down other provisions.”

37 JEP Statutory Law, above note 13, Art. 23; Constitutional Court of Colombia, Judgment C–080, 15 August 2018.

38 Constitutional Court of Colombia, Judgment C-080, 15 August 2018.

39 On why this constitutional authority is novel in the Colombian context, see Juana Inés Acosta López and Gustavo Emilio Cote Barco (eds), Aplicación del derecho internacional en la Jurisdicción Especial para la Paz: Desafíos y avances, Universidad de La Sabana, Chía, 2021, Introduction.

40 See the article by Lily Rueda Guzmán and César Rojas-Orozco in this issue of the Review: Lily Rueda Guzmán and César Rojas-Orozco, “Child Recruitment and Beyond: Prosecuting the Broad Spectrum of Violence Committed against Recruited Children within the Former FARC–EP Ranks’, International Review of the Red Cross, Vol. 107, No. 930, 2025.

41 ICC, Office of the Prosecutor, “ICC Prosecutor, Mr Karim A. A. Khan QC, Concludes the Preliminary Examination of the Situation in Colombia with a Cooperation Agreement with the Government Charting the Next Stage in Support of Domestic Efforts to Advance Transitional Justice”, Press Release No. ICC-CPI-20211028-PR1623, 28 October 2021.

42 UNSC Res. 2798, 31 October 2025. See also UNSC Res. 2754, 30 October 2024; UN Security Council, “Unanimously Adopting Resolution 2754 (2024), Security Council Extends Mandate of United Nations Verification Mission in Colombia”, Meetings Coverage and Press Releases, UN Doc. SC/15876, 30 October 2024.

43 United Nations Verification Mission in Colombia: Report of the Secretary-General, UN Doc. S/2025/595, 26 September 2025; United Nations Verification Mission in Colombia: Report of the Secretary-General, UN Doc. S/2025/419, 27 June 2025.

44 Protocol Additional (II) to the Geneva Conventions of 12 August 1949, and relating to the Protection of Victims of Non-International Armed Conflicts, 1125 UNTS 609, 8 June 1977 (entered into force 7 December 1978) (AP II), Art. 6(5).

45 Jean-Marie Henckaerts and Louise Doswald-Beck (eds), Customary International Humanitarian Law, Vol. 1: Rules, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2005 (ICRC Customary Law Study), Rule 159, available at: https://ihl-databases.icrc.org/en/customary-ihl/rules. Rule 159 (“Amnesty”) states that, at the end of hostilities, the authorities in power should endeavour to grant the broadest possible amnesty to persons who participated in the NIAC or were detained for reasons related to it, excluding persons suspected or accused of war crimes, or convicted thereof.

46 Constitutional Court of Colombia, Judgment C-579/13, 28 August 2013 (reviewing Legislative Act 01 of 2012, “Marco Jurídico para la Paz”), pp. 72–73 (distinguishing transitions from dictatorship to democracy from transitions from war to peace), 212–213 (Article 6(5) of AP II and its relevance in conflict-termination contexts), 242–245 (quoting Article 6(5) of AP II and Rule 159 of the ICRC Customary Law Study, clarifying that accountability must, at a minimum, cover war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide).

47 ICRC Customary Law Study, above note 45, Rules 158–159.

48 Constitutional Court of Colombia, Judgment C–007, 1 March 2018.

49 Ibid.

50 See the article by Marcela Giraldo Muñoz in this issue of the Review: Marcela Giraldo Muñoz, “Amnesties as a Means of Encouraging Transition and Strengthening the Application of IHL in Colombia: The Case of the Special Jurisdiction for Peace”, International Review of the Red Cross, Vol. 107, No. 930, 2025.

51 JEP Statutory Law, above note 13, Art. 20.

52 Constitutional Court of Colombia, Judgments C-579/13, 28 August 2013 (automatic constitutional review of Legislative Act 01 of 2012 on the Legal Framework for Peace); C-674/17, 14 November 2017 (constitutional review of Legislative Act 01 of 2017 establishing the transitional constitutional framework, including the JEP); C-007/18, 1 March 2018 (automatic constitutional review of Law 1820 of 2016, the Amnesty, Pardon and Special Criminal Treatment Act); and C-080/18, 15 August 2018 (prior and integral constitutional review of the statutory law governing the JEP, later enacted as Law 1957 of 2019).

53 ICRC, Balance humanitario 2024: Colombia, Bogotá, 2024, p. 5, available at: www.icrc.org/sites/default/files/document_new/file_list/balance_humanitario_-_version_digital_2024.pdf.