Complexity and Evolution in Repair for Harm: Mapping Multi-Dimensionality in Reparations (VIRTUAL)

Kathy L. Powers
Associate Professor of Political Science, University of New Mexico 
External Faculty Member, Santa Fe Institute

While demand for reparations has increased around the globe, so has the complexity of reparations processes. Most reparations efforts are multi-dimensional given they are local, national, international, and sometimes global. For example, Holocaust Restitution has evolved over 70 years and produced economic flows that transgress national borders.  Holocaust Restitution has included a myriad of actors, tools, and venues used in related reparations efforts domestically in multiple countries and internationally in varied venues like courts, commissions, and treaty negotiations. More recently, a global norm has also emerged in which a toolkit of transitional justice mechanisms, including reparations, are employed to seek redress for past abuses.  Repair for harm through reparations have become more complex because they are multi-dimensional and have evolved into global and local systems of reparations. The lecture focuses on the multi-dimensional features of reparations cases and elements of emergent systems of reparations.