Making Amends for Historic Wrongs: Reparative Justice and the Problem of the Past

Once considered implausible, the demand to make amends for old wrongs has become a pressing contemporary problem. Legal expert Professor Mayo Moran utilizes landmark cases to demonstrate how innovative private law claims have begun to employ reparative justice to frame claims to redress grievous historical wrongs, tracing the evolution from early Holocaust litigation and transitional justice to contemporary claims involving colonial violence, slavery, and institutional abuse.

Drawing on ground-breaking cases involving looted art, institutional child abuse, and involuntary sterilization, the book highlights the shifting understanding of the past. It examines the pivotal role of private law in the effort to rectify historical injustices. Post-Holocaust legal developments, the rise of transitional justice, and the strategic use of domestic civil law by human rights advocates helped to shape these novel redress claims. Moved by survivor narratives and in the face of evolving legal norms, courts, governments, and institutions all began to consider how to respond to grievous old wrongs.

Moran analyzes the design of redress mechanisms and the key role of legal practitioners, showing how jurisdictions have responded through settlements and compensation programs. Using a wide array of examples, Moran outlines the pitfalls and opportunities of law as a tool for addressing past wrongs.