UN Special Rapporteur Fabian Salvioli on UN Redress for Kenyan Land Dispossession Under British Colonization

Since 2019, Kenyans from the Kipsigis and Talai people have sought reparative compensation for their evictions enforced by the British military in favor of white settler-owned tea plantations across decades of colonial rule. In 2021, Fabian Salvioli, the UN Special Rapporteur on the promotion of truth, justice, reparations, and guarantees of non-recurrence, issued three reports that backed Kipsigis and Talai demands to rectify their historical claims of land dispossession during the colonial era. In an interview with Mr. Salvioli, the Georgetown Journal of International Affairs contextualizes this reparative controversy within broader questions of UN-backed transitional justice and the legacies of colonialism.

Read an edited transcription of the interview here.