Are reparations for victims of mass atrocities a matter that can be avoided? Experience suggests they are not. In 2009, 70-years old property claims almost stood in the way of a regional treaty entering into force for 27 EU member states. Reparations claims tend not to fade away with time. International Mass Claims Processes are created ad hoc to compensate losses in the aftermath of conflicts or upheavals. Alongside this development, and during roughly the same time period, the world saw a rise in local transitional justice programs to redress human rights violations (as in South Africa). There has been convergence between these two spheres, and they benefit from similar procedural and organizational techniques, but they are quite different in their legal underpinnings and in the results they deliver. By exploring the purely international versus purely domestic attributes, this paper identifies differences that are useful to bear in mind when assessing hybrid solutions where international and national actors work together. Such mixing may create confusion when a process with some international law attributes is in the final analysis a domestic process. It may be unrealistic to expect a large “international-style” compensation process to be included in the transitional justice solutions in countries with pronounced poverty problems. International claims processes may fail to deliver the peace victims seek, while still exceeding expectations of what can be accomplished and how quickly in terms of evaluating and enforcing claims. International mass claims work has produced benefits in the form of international expertise and realization of how much can be achieved if there is political will. But to expect them to deliver local reconciliation and catharsis is less realistic. This distinction is important e.g. in order to understand the complementarity principle of the International Criminal Court and its implication for victim reparations.
