Justice, truth and reparations: victim’s rights in Colombia through transitional justice
Colombia’s quest for addressing its violent past, dealing with a long history of human rights atrocities and seeking rights redress for more than 9 million victims of its internal armed conflict has led to an emerging transitional justice framework that has sought to put victims at the centre of peace discussions. By presenting the current state of transitional justice in Colombia, this blog by Dr Louis Monroy-Santander, focuses on victims’ rights in post-conflict reconstruction efforts examining issues of justice, truth, and guarantees of non-repetition of human rights violations as pre-conditions for sustainable peace.
Dr Monroy-Santander is a Research Fellow at the University of Birmingham in the UK and Co-Director of the Peace Professionalism Project, St. Paul’s University, Canada. You can read more of his work on Power to Persuade here.
This post is part of our 2025 series exploring the relevance of rights for 21st century policy.
Transitional justice is understood as a range of judicial and non-judicial mechanisms, established during and after peace negotiations, that aim to address legacies of violence in the transition process, either from authoritarian to democratic rule or from contexts of violent armed conflict to peace. In the case of Colombia, such a system has been established to guarantee justice for victims of human rights atrocities, the truth about what happened during the more than 70-year conflict and the establishment of guarantees for non-repetition.
Although the current transitional justice framework is established through the Havana Peace Agreements established between the Colombian state and the Revolutionary Armed Forces (FARC) guerrilla movement back in 2016, the consolidation of such dispositions had begun much earlier with the creation of Law 975 of 2005 (known as the Justice and Peace law) and Law 1448 of 2011 (known as the Victims and Restitution Law). The first introduced transitional justice rationality and structure to the country’s legal regime amidst negotiations between the Colombian state and right-wing paramilitary structures in 2005. The second set up a framework for recognizing the rights of victims of armed conflict, creating a land restitution regime to conduct reparations for those affected by violence.
The combination of retributive (perpetrator-focused) and restorative (victim-focused) structures contributed to the emergence of the integral system for truth, justice, reparation and guarantee of non-repetition agreed upon in 2016. This framework included the creation of institutions such as the Unit for the Search for Missing Persons in the Context of Conflict, the Commission for the Clarification of the Truth, The Special Jurisdiction for Peace and the Measures for Comprehensive Reparation for Peacebuilding and Guarantee of Non-repetition. This transitional justice system is characterized by a dialogic vision that seeks to strike a balance between restoring victim rights and establishing a range of alternatives to the punitive model that had dominated Colombia’s legal system up until 2016.
A key element characterizing recent peace dispositions in Colombia, including transitional justice, is the adoption of a gender perspective that accounts for the need to look at gender-based violence in the country, gender inequality and the state of LGBTQI+ rights. The inclusion of these themes and measures comes from a deeply rooted human rights activism since the 1980s, which was notably visible in the demands from NGO activism for gender commissions and gender dispositions within the negotiating table at Havana.
But despite the holistic and inclusive spirit behind these provisions, the promise of rights redress for victims and the establishment of sound foundations for sustainable peace in Colombia has not yielded the expected results; more concerningly it has entered a crisis and survival phase in recent years. This situation derives from a range of complex issues such as a lack of pedagogy in society around transitional justice and its mechanisms, a lack of political will and animosity against the framework itself expressed in political and financial attacks that have affected the workings of the system.
The first and most concerning challenge is expressed under the phrase “a transitional justice without transition”, reflecting the fact that many territories in Colombia have not seen the end of violence despite peace, disarmament and demobilization processes both with paramilitary structures and FARC. Colombia has not seen the end of armed conflict due to the persistence of violent structures such as the National Liberation Army (ELN) guerrilla, the splintering of FARC into a range of dissident armed groups, the re-emergence of paramilitary structures around economic strategic zones in the country and the presence of drug-trafficking and criminal organisations in many parts of the territory.
To illustrate the impact of violence on the prospects of transitional justice providing redress for victims, one needs only to look at the situation for many human rights defenders and transitional justice activists. In recent years, these social leaders have been targeted by violent groups due to their promotion of truth, justice, reconciliation and peace work. Back in 2022, Colombia made worldwide headlines for the rise in the death toll of social leaders and human rights activists, witnessing the assassination of around 215, according to the Ombudsman’s office. According to international sources, in 2024 this figure was around 188 leaders assassinated.
Another challenge for transitional justice stems from a lack of pedagogy and understanding of the mechanisms and their procedures. For starters, it is important to note that back in 2016 the Havana agreement was put to a referendum, consulting Colombian society about their acceptance of its dispositions, leading to a winning “no” in the electoral process. This resulted from a campaign marked by fake news, distorted messages, social and political polarization, and massive differences between urban and rural settings’ experiences around conflict and their needs for peace.
Beyond the 2016 referendum impasse, peace and transitional justice have been affected by other factors in more recent years. For instance, the presidency of Ivan Duque (2018-2022) was characterized by financial and budgetary cuts against some of the transitional justice institutions as well as political attacks against the Special Jurisdiction for Peace and the reparative spirit of transitional justice, framed in a discourse that deemed the system as impunity. Just as concerning has been the approach of current president Gustavo Petro (2022-2026) who, despite sending clear messages of support for Havana and the transitional justice framework during his presidential campaign, his record in implementing and embracing the rights redressal spirit of the framework has been weak and failing.
Gustavo Petro has sent mixed messages regarding transitional justice, discussing at times the idea of a “social pardon” that has been interpreted by victim groups as an excuse for the delays and lack of will around the investigation and punishment for gross human rights violations stemming from armed conflict. Equally problematic has been the failure of Petro’s “Total Peace” policy which has seen the breakup of ceasefire and peace proposals with ELN and the explosion of armed violence in areas like El Catatumbo, Antioquia, Cauca, Chocó, Nariño and other regions of the country, contributing further to the idea of a “transitional justice without transition.”
The latest blow to transitional justice efforts in Colombia came recently with Donald Trump’s decision to freeze USAID’s funds, affecting a lot of the financial structures for transitional justice, particularly the workings of the Special Jurisdiction for Peace (JEP) as well as a range of essential projects funded by U.S. funding for the implementation of rural reform and the strengthening of the transitional justice framework. Donald Trump’s policy has meant freezing around 420 million dollars per year for Colombia, around 35 million dollars per month. This challenges the state’s capacity to support the system and its institutions, providing a crisis that adds to the various dilemmas that Petro has faced around peace, security and development issues in the country.
Content moderator: Sarah-Jane Fenton