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The Complexities of Land Reparations

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 December 2018

Gregory S. Alexander
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Abstract

The question whether unjust dispossessions of land perpetrated on whole peoples in the past should be corrected by restitution in kind, that is, granting reparations in the form of returning land to the dispossessed former owners or their present‐day successors, is substantially more complex than the questions posed by other forms of reparations. I argue that the complexities involved in all the situations where claims for land reparations are made to correct historic injustices give us good reasons to be hesitant about granting such claims. At the same time, we should not dismiss such claims out of hand. Reparations that take a form other than restitution of dispossessed land may be both necessary and sufficient to establish a public marker of acknowledgment.

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Articles
Information
Law & Social Inquiry , Volume 39 , Issue 4 , Fall 2014 , pp. 874 - 901
Copyright
Copyright © American Bar Foundation, 2014 

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