The Role Of Land Restitution In South Africa

“Only by dealing upfront with restitution can wars and conflicts come to a permanent end.”

Since the end of the cold war, property restitution has featured as a prominent issue in many post-conflict settings. Land restitution which includes the return of land, property and homes, has been viewed as a mechanism to address past human rights injustices that occur across a many countries, injustices ranging from communist nationalisations and colonial-era land confiscations, to outright war crimes, ethnic cleansing, land clearings, and forced migrations. Often restitution policies are a feature of broader transitional justice initiatives.
This dissertation will consider the thesis question of whether land reform can be a form of justice. Land

I will begin with a brief analysis of the historical development of restitution within international law. This will also include a discussion of the United Nation’s Reparation and United Nation’s Restitution Principles, also known as the Van Boven/Bassiouni and the Pinheiri Principles respectively (now forth referred to as “UN”). I will then make the case for land restitution to be included within the definition of transitional justice. I will also consider the limitations of restitution. The final chapter will use a case study of the experiences of land restitution programs in South Africa to make a case for the role of restitution in transitional justice in practice. Ideally, I would have considered multiple case studies to show the breadth of experiences across Africa but that is outside the scope of this dissertation. Case studies from countries like Kenya, or Zimbabwe would have provided a nice contrast to the South African case study as the root causes of the land issues in those countries are different to South Africa. In Kenya for example, the land issues and displacement are linked to political violence. I am aware that the limitation of the South African example is its context, South Africa was dealing with the legacies of apartheid, however there are lessons that can be learnt from this example, which can be applied elsewhere. A Last, this essay will conclude that land reform should be a form of transitional justice and that a “broader definition of justice” is