In the context of climate change, conflicting legal claims are being articulated and adjudicated about who is owed reparations. Vulnerable individuals and states, primarily from the Global South, have advanced arguments in various forums that they are owed reparations or compensation for the harms caused by excessive emissions of high-emitting states or corporations. Yet concurrently, fossil fuel companies are utilizing international investment law and arbitration to seek compensation for government policies that promote a transition away from fossil fuels.

Reparations aim to rectify historical harms by compensating victims, or their descendants. Even when such harms have a transnational aspect, as with the case for climate change reparations, they often stem from entrenched domestic political stalemates. In a common pattern, vested interest groups oppose reforms that, although supported by majorities and beneficial to society as a whole, threaten their own material interest. Such groups hold a mobilization advantage that allows them to effectively obstruct change. Left unresolved, these domestic stalemates can compound harm over time in a way that eventually forms the basis of demands for reparations.

“La tierra está enferma”—“the territory is sick” as the result of the armed conflict, say the elders of the Awá people, one of Colombia’s Indigenous groups primarily living in the region of Nariño, who preserve their native language, the Awapit, and with it an entire spiritual and cultural relationship with its territory.1 For the Awá people, the prolonged internal armed conflict in Colombia affected not only human beings but also their Mother Earth, the Katsa Su, la gran casa—the big house. They consider their territory a living being that can experience pain and is currently sick and in need of reparation. In 2019, the Colombian Special Jurisdiction for Peace—as the court in charge of dealing with cases related to the armed conflict—embodied these views and recognized the Katsa Su as a victim of the armed conflict, with its own right to reparation.2 But what should reparations to the Katsa Su look like? And more broadly, how does the concept of repairing Indigenous territories challenge traditional anthropocentric assumptions of reparation in Colombia and beyond?

The expectation that those impacted by violations of public international law will receive a remedy has ballooned in recent years. Such expectations have shaped international legal discourse in unexpected ways and generated concrete action. In DRC v. Uganda (2022), the International Court of Justice awarded US$330 million in damages for wartime violations.1 International climate change talks are increasingly preoccupied with a controversial fund to address loss and damage.2 In 2024, the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued its largest victims reparations order.3 These developments are celebrated as examples of realizing an individual’s international legal right to reparation. While an important starting point, this perspective fails to provide a full picture of these novel practices.

Breaches of international law have consequences. Under the Articles on the Responsibility of States for Internationally Wrongful Acts, the international responsibility of a state triggered by its internationally wrongful acts entails specific legal consequences, including the obligation to provide “full reparation” for the injury caused.1 However, obtaining reparations in the current international legal system often proves difficult. Existing international courts and tribunals often lack the jurisdiction to provide full reparations, especially when there are multiple and complex violations that caused injuries to numerous and diverse parties. International claims commissions can be effective instruments to provide reparations in such circumstances, including in post-conflict and other complex situations. Indeed, international claims commissions can fill the vacuum that exists between breaches and reparations due for serious violations. Their flexibility is a unique feature that can provide the missing procedural bridge between international law violations and reparation.