Remedies

In international law, remedies are the consequences a wrongdoing state, organisation, or individual must bear once a breach of a legal obligation is established. The most authoritative restatement is the International Law Commission's 2001 Articles on Responsibility of States for Internationally Wrongful Acts (ARSIWA), which in Articles 34–37 lists three forms of reparation:

• Restitution — re-establishing the situation that existed before the wrongful act (e.g., returning seized property or releasing detained persons).
• Compensation — payment for any financially assessable damage, including lost profits, where restitution is impossible or insufficient.
• Satisfaction — acknowledgement of the breach, expression of regret, or formal apology, typically for non-material injury such as affronts to sovereignty.

ARSIWA Article 30 additionally requires cessation of the ongoing wrongful act and, where circumstances demand, assurances and guarantees of non-repetition.

The Permanent Court of International Justice articulated the foundational principle in the Factory at Chorzów case (1928): reparation must, "as far as possible, wipe out all the consequences of the illegal act." The ICJ has applied this framework repeatedly — for example, ordering the United States to "review and reconsider" convictions of Mexican nationals in Avena (2004), and awarding compensation to the Democratic Republic of the Congo against Uganda in the 2022 reparations judgment of Armed Activities on the Territory of the Congo.

Remedies operate differently across regimes. The WTO Dispute Settlement Understanding generally permits only prospective remedies — withdrawal of the offending measure or, failing that, authorised retaliation — not retrospective damages. Regional human rights courts go further: the European Court of Human Rights awards "just satisfaction" under Article 41 ECHR, while the Inter-American Court of Human Rights is known for expansive reparations packages including symbolic measures, institutional reform, and victim rehabilitation.

Investor-state arbitration under instruments such as the ICSID Convention typically results in monetary awards, occasionally very large (e.g., the 2014 Yukos awards, later annulled in Dutch courts and subject to ongoing litigation).