Land has been one of the central issues of the Colombian armed conflict since the 1950s. It has been present and addressed in multiple forms, including debates and policies regarding inequality, control over resources, agrarian reform, possession and property rights, forced displacement, land usurpation, agricultural development, etc. ‘Restitution of land and property’ in terms of victims’ reparations, is a more recent addition to these debates. Indeed, one of the most recent attempts by the Colombian state to address the issue of land is to include a restitution agenda in the Transitional Justice process initiated in 2005, as a component of the reparations program designed to meet the needs of victims of internal displacement. The aim of this article is to explore how the issue of land restitution has been incorporated in the Colombian transitional justice scheme in order to assess the potential contributions and limitations of transitional justice to a distributive justice agenda. The article is based on an analysis of current developments in the area of land restitution at the National Commission for Reparations and Reconciliation, the institution responsible for the design and oversight of the Colombian transitional justice process.

Keywords: Land Restitution, Transitional Justice, Colombia, Distributive Justice, Victim Reparations