The Special Jurisdiction for Peace (Jurisdicción Especial para la Paz, JEP) issued its first convictions on September 16 and 18, 2025. The JEP forms part, alongside other bodies, of the Comprehensive System for Truth, Justice, Reparation, and Non-Repetition (Sistema Integral de Verdad, Justicia, Reparación y No Repetición, SIVJRNR) — a transitional justice framework established by the 2016 Peace Agreement between the government and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC-EP) and later incorporated into the country’s Constitution. These convictions were eagerly awaited by the public, by stakeholders, and more broadly by all those who,are concerned with transitional justice around the world. In this short post, we aim to: (1) highlight the unprecedented nature of these convictions in the field of international criminal justice; (2) situate the JEP within a broader context and identify some of its distinctive features compared to other transitional justice mechanisms; and (3) take a step back to discuss some of the major challenges that lie ahead now that the convictions have been handed down.
The convictions were issued in macro-cases Nos. 01 and 03. Macro-cases are structural investigations linked to the Colombian armed conflict, each grouping, under a single procedural framework, a set of interrelated acts connected by a common material, personal, or territorial element. They follow a strategy of aggregation grounded in both a thematic logic — establishing individual responsibility in cases that reveal a common pattern of violations or criminality — and a selective logic — focusing the tribunal’s limited human, material, and financial resources on the most serious cases, given the scale of the crimes. Macro-case No. 01 concerns the kidnapping, detention, torture, and killing of civilians by the FARC-EP guerrilleros to finance the organization and maintain territorial control. Macro-case No. 03 addresses the so-called “false positives” (falso positivos): civilians murdered by state security forces and staged as guerrilla fighters killed in combat. These crimes occurred within the context of President Álvaro Uribe’s security policy, which targeted civilians suspected of collaborating with the guerrillas. The policy created financial and labor incentives for military performance, but in practice it led members of the National Army, sometimes in collaboration with paramilitary groups, to commit extrajudicial killings.
The convictions consisted of a series of restorative sanctions (sanciones propias), that is, non-custodial sentences. This outcome is striking given that the accused were prosecuted for war crimes and crimes against humanity and would normally have faced the most severe penalties, namely imprisonment. Custodial sentences would have reflected the principle of proportionality in sentencing—a principle enshrined in most international criminal law treaties, applied by both national and international courts, and protected by regional human rights bodies.
Restorative sanctions, by contrast, aim to reflect a different conception of proportionality in criminal sentencing. They are grounded in the restorative paradigm that guides the JEP’s proceedings and rely on victims’ participation throughout the judicial process. Under this model, sanctions consist of restrictions on liberty combined with community service projects designed for reparative purposes. In macro-case No. 01, participants contribute to memory policies focused on symbolic reparation, assist in the search for disappeared persons, and take part in educational and environmental initiatives. They also participate in projects aimed at preventing accidents caused by landmines and unexploded ordnance left in conflict zones. In macro-case No. 03, former members of the National Army along Colombia’s Caribbean coast must engage in activities to establish a center for harmonization and cultural integration for Indigenous communities—specifically the Kankuamo and Wiwa peoples—who were victims of extrajudicial killings. Their responsibilities include contributing to memory initiatives, training victims in productive agricultural activities, and constructing multi-purpose community houses for victims.
In every respect, this is an extraordinary jurisdiction that departs from the conventional models of international criminal justice, too often reduced to Nuremberg, Tokyo, The Hague, and Arusha — that is, to classic punitive justice. The departure is not one of subject matter, since it also addresses mass crimes of extreme violence that make its task more difficult, but rather in its organization and functioning: investigation, prosecution, trial, and lengthy prison sentences (sometimes with additional penalties), all within a procedure largely inspired by the American model. That model represents only one possible modality of international criminal justice — understood not merely as justice rendered by international courts, but more broadly as the entirety of national or international (quasi-)judicial mechanisms charged with adjudicating the most serious crimes (war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide). These are deemed “international crimes” not because only certain states have jurisdiction over them, but because they implicate the international community, which has a collective interest in their repression.
From this perspective, international criminal justice overlaps with transitional justice, which comprises
“the full range of processes and mechanisms associated with a society’s attempts to come to terms with a legacy of large-scale past abuses, in order to ensure accountability, serve justice and achieve reconciliation. These may include both judicial and non-judicial mechanisms, with differing levels of international involvement (or none at all) and individual prosecutions, reparations, truth-seeking, institutional reform, vetting and dismissals, or a combination thereof.” [United Nations Security Council, “The Rule of Law and Transitional Justice in Conflict and Post-Conflict Societies”, Report of the Secretary-General, August, 24 2004, U.N. Doc. S/2004/616].
The JEP constitutes the third and most recent phase of transitional justice’s evolution, following: (1) the first international criminal tribunals tasked with punishing perpetrators with the utmost severity—also the era of the first international criminal law treaties (1940s–1960s); (2) the era of amnesty, pardon, and prescription—an institutionalized form of forgetting (1970s–1980s); and (3) the rise of “truth and reconciliation commissions,” non-judicial bodies that proliferated worldwide, often serving as substitutes for tribunals deliberately prevented from acting by political powers in the name of national reconciliation (1990s–2000s).
The JEP goes much further than these rudimentary forms of justice, which entirely bypass the judicial — and therefore official — establishment of guilt, punishment, and reparation. It is often described — and not by accident — as the most advanced mechanism, synthesizing lessons drawn from past experiences of transitional justice. Its architects incorporated these lessons into both its philosophy and its functioning. The JEP integrates judicial procedures and trials in the narrowest sense of the term, including genuine convictions, but without systematically imposing prison terms.
The system seeks to balance incentives for armed groups to demobilize with victims’ rights to justice, truth, and reparation, which require investigations and convictions. Its central feature — and the one that most distinguishes it from other mechanisms — is its dual aim of pacification and reconciliation: first, by moving beyond a purely punitive-deterrent logic and rethinking the role of sanctions through hybrid penalties that combine punitive and restorative elements; and second, by conditioning these benefits on the effective participation of demobilized fighters in the truth-telling process. Perpetrators are placed in a position to speak, to reveal crucial information, and to express remorse, steps essential for victims and for society. The system thus departs from the traditionally deterrent-punitive rationale of criminal sanctions, privileging instead an inclusive-restorative approach designed to repair harm and reintegrate offenders by enabling them to reweave ties with the community. The JEP took nearly ten years to investigate these sprawling cases, a time comparable in scope and subject matter to the megacausas in Argentina concerning crimes committed under the dictatorship. These first convictions were therefore eagerly awaited, but their ambition and scope should not be overstated.
The social legitimacy of the SIVJRNR is difficult to assess: all transitional justice mechanisms are contested by part of the population and political actors, since they may be perceived as a diluted form of criminal repression and therefore akin to impunity.
Furthermore, and particularly crucial at present, there are serious concerns regarding the first two judgments. These decisions pose at least a twofold challenge. First, enforcement, that requires substantial resources, presents a significant dilemma. Both the current and previous Colombian administrations have faced persistent criticism for neglecting the implementation of the 2016 Peace Agreement, which directly affects the resources available to enforce the sanctions. This shortfall creates a considerable hurdle for the JEP in assuring victims that accountability will lead to meaningful restoration. The challenge is especially acute in Case No. 03, which requires an extensive program of house construction and community infrastructure. In Case No. 01, the sanctions also raise questions about how restrictions on liberty will be enforced and what restorative activities will involve, beyond the administrative tasks outlined in the decision. In sum, the international admiration for the JEP model is yet to be confirmed in practice, as discussions have mainly focused on the formal model while waiting for its real effects and the performance of its judges.
Lastly, the evolving political context poses risks, as the country approaches next year’s presidential election in which some candidates still opposed to the system. Nevertheless, amid these uncertainties, the JEP’s initial rulings convey a message of hope and highlight the potential of transitional justice to chart constructive paths for future decision-making.
