Foreign concerns: the impact of international investment law on the ethnic-based land restitution programme in Colombia

The Colombian state has incorporated various mechanisms within its transitional justice framework for the protection of victims of the internal armed conflict. For ethnic groups who are victims of land dispossession and forced displacement, the State has established a special judicial procedure allowing them to request the legal and material restitution of their lands and territories. This article explores restitution cases in which there were competing interests in the land by mining companies and how the institutions in charge of implementing the restitution programme have shown an increasing awareness of these companies’ interests by avoiding legal remedies that could be too burdensome. We focus on a case that provides evidence that this awareness has been influenced by the existence of international investment agreements that protect foreign investors and that might result in future international arbitration claims against the state.