Greg Alexander of Cornell Law School has just posted a paper on "The Complexities of Land Reparations." And a lot of what he has to say applies to reparations more generally. Here is his 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 of 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 which take a form other than restitution of dispossessed land may be both necessary and sufficient to establish a public marker of acknowledgment.
Hat tip to Steve Clowney over at propertyprof, who also writes on allied issues. This deeply serious and thoughtful paper is further evidence of the resurgence of reparations talk in the academy.
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