The paradox of international reparations

For centuries, international reparations were commonly exacted as a form of victor’sjustice after war. Following World War II, however, the bitter legacy of the Treaty ofVersailles and West Germany’s compensation of Nazism’s victim shifted this practice,ushering in a novel moral economy of international reparations. Yet, while recentdecades have seen increased transnational activism around reparations, as well asinterstate aid payments and official apologies, international reparations remain infre-quent, and agreements often fail to end financial claims. This paper argues that oneexplanation for this lackluster record is a central paradox relating to finality. Thoughinternational reparations are designed to settle accounts and provide a basis fordeeper reconciliation, by opening issues of traumatic memory to public debate, theyoften achieve the opposite effect and inspire a cascade of further financial claims. Asevidence, we examine three cases of international reparations’ occurrence and rejec-tion: Germany’s reparations for Nazi-era crimes, the United Nations CompensationCommission (UNCC) formation following Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait, and reparationsnegotiated but removed from the 1973 Paris Peace Accords. Employing process trac-ing methods on archival documents, we demonstrate in each case how this paradoxhelps explain international reparations’ limitations as a practice.