This paper explores the field of reparations for historical injustices as an expression of the juridification of international affairs. Following Michael Mann, it examines the ideological, military, political, and economic reasons for the spread of reparations politics and the different meanings that the notion of reparations may have. This is explicated on the basis of the UN’s Basic Guidelines on the Right to Reparation for Gross Violations of Human Rights, a crucial foundation for the pursuit of reparations in contemporary life.

• John Torpey(City Univ of New York)