The roadblocks of redistributive justice: Norms, power, and the limits of international reparation claims

Since 2013, the Caribbean Community’s campaign for slavery reparations has won unprecedented visibility, yet no former slave-trading power has granted material redress, while other postcolonial claims, from Germany’s settlement with Namibia to Italy’s with Libya, occasionally succeed. Why do slavery-related claims fare worse than other claims for colonial injustice? This article treats state responses as selective compliance with behavioral manifestations of the norm of repair and scales them as acknowledgement, symbolic remedies, and material redress. All 45 interstate postcolonial reparation dyads (1960–2025) are analyzed using a discrete-time event-history model, complemented by a structured comparison of the United Kingdom and the Netherlands drawing on 20 elite interviews. Claimants’ relative economic and diplomatic leverage raises the probability of all forms of redress. Two roadblocks then intervene. Right-wing conviction lowers the likelihood of acknowledgement. Instead of their fiscal capacity, respondents are concerned about setting precedents by shifting the benchmark for future cases with every concession, scaled by the number of successor states positioned to invoke it. The undeniable moral clarity of claims related to slavery makes them undeniable, increasing statements of regret. High estimates and coordinated multilateral claims, however, maximize the roadblock’s effect, resulting in higher reluctance toward further commitment.