Law, time, and (in)justice after empire: Germany's objection to colonial reparations and the chronopolitics of deflection

Graf, Sinja ORCID: 0009-0002-5498-4044 (2025) Law, time, and (in)justice after empire: Germany's objection to colonial reparations and the chronopolitics of deflection. International Theory. ISSN 1752-9719

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Abstract

Debates on reparations for colonial atrocities highlight the relationship between international law, political time, and (in)justice. This paper examines Germany's foreclosure of reparation claims raised by descendants of survivors of its 1904–8 colonial genocide. The analysis draws on parliamentary interpellation records (1989–2021) around the question of German reparations to Namibia's Ovaherero and Nama. I argue that Germany mobilizes temporal rules of international law, especially the non-retroactivity of the Genocide Convention, to deflect from such claims. This strategy first confines the political question of colonial reparations to the international legal realm, only to then invalidate it via the temporal rule of law's non-retroactivity. I argue that this strategy enables a ‘chronopolitics of deflection’, by which Germany has pointed away from colonial reparations while directing attention to development assistance payments to Namibia. The paper relates these findings to theories of political time, arguing that Germany's reliance on the non-retroactivity of the Genocide Convention yields what I call a ‘projection of history as normatively temporalized time’. The paper concludes with critiques of the relationship between international law and colonial reparations, arguing that current invocations of inter-temporal and non-retroactive international law implicitly reiterate colonial law, thereby locking in place an unjust legal past.

Item Type:	Article
Additional Information:	© 2025 The Author(s)
Divisions:	International Relations
Subjects:	J Political Science > JZ International relations D History General and Old World > DD Germany J Political Science > JV Colonies and colonization. Emigration and immigration. International migration
Date Deposited:	21 Jan 2025 10:30
Last Modified:	21 Jan 2025 10:30
URI:	http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/id/eprint/126958

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