How does human rights law arbitrate the spatial dimensions of violence? This paper broaches this question from a “critical geographies of human rights” standpoint to grapple with how human rights law defines the spatial dimensions of the very violence it sets out to confront. Through a focus on Colombia’s 2011 “Victims’ and Land Restitution Law” (the Victims’ Law), I demonstrate how human rights law does not just attempt to ameliorate legacies of violence, but that it circumscribes the spatial valences of violence in particular ways. Colombia has one of the world’s largest displaced populations and since 2011 has managed an extensive restitution program designed to restore land title to conflict victims who lost or sold property due to armed conflict. In this case, human rights law is productive of a “juridical gaze” that illuminates the spatial dynamics of forced displacement in a manner that obscures or only indirectly addresses the relationship between forced displacement and inequality in land ownership. Drawing on contemporary debates concerning the relationship between human rights and neoliberal inequality, I argue that that human rights law produces spatial renderings of violence that reflect the underlying degree to which human rights projects recognize or eschew material inequality and its relationship to violence.

人权法如何仲裁暴力的空间范围？本文从“人权的关键地域”的角度提出了这个问题，以应对人权法如何定义暴力行为所面临的空间维度。通过重点介绍哥伦比亚2011年的《受害者与土地归还法》（《受害者法》），我展示了人权法不仅是在试图减轻暴力遗留问题，而且还以特定方式限制了暴力的空间价值。哥伦比亚是世界上最大的流离失所者之一，自2011年以来，它实施了一项广泛的归还计划，旨在为因武装冲突而丢失或出售财产的冲突受害者恢复土地所有权。在这种情况下，人权法产生了一种“法律注视”，它以模糊的方式或仅间接地解决了强迫流离失所与土地所有权不平等之间的关系的方式阐明了强迫流离失所的空间动态。我以当代关于人权与新自由主义不平等之间关系的辩论为依据，我认为，人权法产生了暴力的空间效果，反映了人权项目承认或避免实质性不平等及其与暴力关系的潜在程度。