Judgment of non-combatants for dispossession of land: the JEP a new version of justice and peace?

Abstract

This paper, is the research product of the project “Historical and Critical Analysis of Colombian Agrarian Law”, which is funded by Fundación Universitaria Agraria de Colombia. The paper considers the problem of the effects that can be expected in terms of trial and conviction of civilians, third parties and State agents liable for the forced dispossession and abandonment of land, given the exclusion of the Colombian Constitutional Court by not obliging civilians and agents of the State, who participated in crimes committed in the context of the armed conflict, to appear before the Jurisdiction Special for Peace (JEP). The analysis begins with some conceptual precisions about dispossession, forced abandonment of land, typologies and modalities used; then, the participation of State agents and third parties in these crimes is reviewed; then, the evolution of paragraph 32 of the Final Agreement of Havana until the issuance of Legislative Act 01 of 2017 is described; In the end, the effects that Sentence C - 674 of 2017 can have in the context of transitional justice of the Integral System of Truth, Justice, Reparation and Non - Repetition, and the conclusions derived from the development of the investigation are presented.