Busol Kateryna. Reparations for atrocity victims in Ukraine: survivors’ aspirations and the emerging legal framework
Russia’s aggression against Ukraine, especially its full-scale unfolding since 2022, has highlighted many important issues of international law. Among them is a question as to how reparations—which are at the crux of transitional justice’s survivor-centric ethos—can be effectively provided to atrocity victims amid ongoing hostilities. This article analyses the viability and modalities of individual reparations in the Russia-Ukraine armed conflict in three parts. First, it situates the right to remedy and reparation under international law and Ukraine’s and Russia’s respective obligations. This section argues that, under current international law, urgent interim reparations and certain other transitional justice measures can and, in the context of Ukraine, should be implemented while the armed conflict is still ongoing. Second, the article discusses key developments in Ukraine’s transitional justice and reparations vision during the first phase of the armed conflict in 2014-2021. Special attention is paid to how the timing and modalities of Ukraine’s proposed transitional justice measures—and, in particular, reparations—were impacted by geopolitical constellations at the time. Finally, the article discusses key developments, challenges, and ways forward concerning introducing individual reparations in Ukraine post-full-scale invasion. The piece concludes that to provide effective redress, such reparations should be gender-sensitive, intersectionally consider structural inequalities, and apply equally to persons harmed since the beginning of Russia’s aggression in 2014.
