Rethinking Reparations in International Law

On 16-17 November 2018, the Lauterpacht Centre for International Law, in collaboration with the Athens Public International Law Center, held a workshop entitled ‘Rethinking Reparations in International Law’, organised by Dr Veronika Fikfak, fellow and director of studies at Homerton College, and Professor Photini Pazartzis, professor at the Faculty of Law at the National & Kapodistrian University of Athens.

The ESIL-funded workshop sought to address the recent developments and scholarship in the area of reparations in international law. It addressed questions such as the role remedies play in international law, whether this role is different in different areas of international law, how they are chosen by judges and arbitrators, how they are calculated, their efficiency, as well as various other issues. The workshop worked as a platform for discussion of new ideas about the efficiency of reparations in international law by bringing together scholars writing on theory of reparations, those conducting empirical or comparative research, as well as practitioners, judges and arbitrators.

The workshop lasted two days and consisted of 7 panels, each addressing a different question. The first day ended with a debate with judges and practitioners on the issue of remedies in practice. The debate was led by Professor Eyal Benvenisti, Whewell Professor of International Law at the University of Cambridge, and the issue was discussed by Judge Pete Kovacs, judge at the ICC, Judge Paulo Pinto de Albuquerque, judge at the European Court of Human Rights, Dr Carla Ferstman, senior lecturer at the University of Essex, and Dr Conor McCarthy, barrister at Monckton Chambers.

Overall, the workshop was a success. It drew reparation experts from institutions all over the world – various EU countries, but also South Africa, Turkey, the United States, and China. It received a lot of positive feedback from the participants, who saw it as a great opportunity to discuss reparations in a multidisciplinary setting.