Reparations, Abolitionist Imaginaries, and Self-transforming Victims: Transformative Justice at the ICC

Abstract

Abstract This chapter interrogates how ‘transformative reparations’ became part of the Court’s promise to deliver justice for victims. These reparations aim to achieve ‘transformative justice’ by addressing the root causes of conflict, gender discrimination, and inequality that made victimization possible in the first place. It is curious that such a concept, which prompts a much broader discussion on structural change, would appear in the documents of an institution that, due to its focus on individual criminal accountability, is explicitly anti-structural. How did it get there and what is its function? Reading the Court’s wrestling with transformative justice symptomatically, I argue that the very terms in which the problem of transformation is posed—‘transforming structures’, ‘addressing root causes’—make societal transformation seem impossible not only for the ICC but also for the critics of carceral solutions. While scholars have debated whether ‘transformative justice’ is a realistic and appropriate reparation mandate for the Court, this chapter traces its ideological forms and functions and their connection to material relations. By scrutinizing the Trust Fund’s assistance programmes in Northern Uganda, I demonstrate that it is precisely the promise of transformative justice that helps reproduce the status quo. Instead of tackling structural causes, the concept ends up shifting the responsibility for ‘transformation’ not only to local stakeholders but also to the individual victim–survivor. In the final analysis, it is the victim rather than the state, the local community, the global economy, or the international community, who is expected to transform.