The State of Repair: The International Norm of Reparations between Aspirations and Expectations.

This article examines the international norm of reparations, a core element of transitional justice, by analyzing global discourse from the United Nations and Amnesty International from 1945 to 2023. It finds that the norm—that victims of gross human rights violations have a right to reparations and that states are responsible for providing them—has strengthened over time, with broad consensus on its core content. However, aspirational claims in scholarly literature, such as the responsibility of nonstate actors for reparations and the inclusion of symbolic or collective reparations, are not firmly reflected in international expectations or practice. The study highlights the importance of distinguishing between normative aspirations and empirical realities in transitional justice research and suggests that mapping international expectations can enhance future empirical assessments of transitional justice measures.