By Ana María Mondragón
A stronger security policy can coexist with implementation of the 2016 Peace Agreement, victim-centered justice, and institutions designed to move armed actors back into civilian life.
On August 7, 2026, right-wing leader Abelardo de la Espriella took office as president of Colombia after winning 49.66 percent of the vote. He defeated left-wing candidate Iván Cepeda, who received 48.7 percent, in the narrowest presidential result in the country’s history.
A central part of De la Espriella’s campaign was an agenda focused on strengthening security: greater reliance on the military, mega-prisons modeled on El Salvador, an end to negotiations with illegal armed groups.
This directly challenged former president Gustavo Petro’s Total Peace policy.
Total Peace attempted simultaneous dialogues and legal processes with insurgent and criminal organizations.
During the campaign, De la Espriella also proposed reshaping key parts of the 2016 Peace Agreement with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia–People’s Army (FARC-EP). These included rural-development programs for conflict-affected regions and institutions responsible for peace implementation and former combatants’ reintegration. Whether those proposals will materialize remains uncertain. But a security policy will be more sustainable if it strengthens Colombia’s peace infrastructure and implements the 2016 agreement rather than treating peace and security as competing projects.
The JEP and the Debate Over Accountability
A major focus of De la Espriella’s campaign was the Special Jurisdiction for Peace (Jurisdicción Especial para la Paz – JEP). The JEP is the temporary court created by the 2016 agreement to investigate, judge, and sanction the gravest crimes committed during more than five decades of armed conflict by former FARC-EP members, the security forces, and certain civilians and state agents.
In his inaugural speech before military personnel at Battallion Pichincha in Cali,
He nevertheless promised to respect the existing legal order while reviewing “the nature and effects” of a jurisdiction that, in his view, “was created without recognizing the popular will”.
That language matters. The Peace Agreement and the JEP are embedded in Colombia’s constitutional order. The court is also central to Colombia’s international commitments to investigate and sanction war crimes and crimes against humanity. Budget cuts, political delegitimization, or administrative obstruction could weaken the institution without formally abolishing it.
The JEP is the judicial body of the Comprehensive System of Truth, Justice, Reparation and Non-Recurrence, which also included the Truth Commission and includes the Unit for the Search for Disappeared Persons. It concentrates on those most responsible for the gravest crimes and grants amnesty only for eligible political offenses. Its model combines transitional justice with restorative justice. Those who fail to comply with the conditions of the system may receive prison sentences of up to twenty years. Those who acknowledge responsibility, provide full truth, and contribute to repairing victims may receive restorative sanctions, one of the biggest innovations of the justice model negotiated at La Havana. They impose five to eight years of work designed to repair the harm and the victims, under strict restrictions of rights and liberties and judicial monitoring. Perpetrators will work in projects that may include demining, searching for disappeared persons, rebuilding community infrastructure, restoring ecosystems, and preserving memory. The financing and structuring of these projects depend entirely on the Colombian government.
The JEP has opened eleven macro-cases—large investigations that group representative patterns of criminality and focus on senior responsibility. It has accredited 15,753 individual victims and 439 collective victims, enabling them to participate in proceedings. The court’s findings have documented 21,396 kidnapping victims, 18,677 children recruited or used by the FARC-EP, and 7,837 people unlawfully killed and falsely reported as combat deaths by state agents. Other cases address the genocide of the Patriotic Union political movement; sexual and reproductive violence; crimes against ethnic communities and harm to nature.
Its proceedings and precautionary measures have supported the identification of remains and 149 dignified returns, ceremonies through which identified remains are returned to families in accordance with their cultural and spiritual practices.
By June 2026, 337 individuals had been indicted, including former FARC-EP members, members of the security forces, civilians, and a former state agent. But the court has also moved from investigation to judgment. Its first restorative judgments imposed sanctions on former FARC-EP commanders for kidnappings and former military members for extrajudicial killings. Nineteen individuals who acknowledged responsibility are now subject to restorative sanctions, with projects and monitoring arrangements already under preparation.
Some achievements are harder to count. Victims and perpetrators have met in carefully prepared restorative processes. Public acknowledgments have exposed crimes concealed for decades. Public hearings have allowed the country to hear both the depth of victims’ suffering and the structures that enabled the violence.
These results matter for security and non-recurrence. 9,942 former FARC-EP members and 5,422 members of the security forces had signed commitments to submit to the JEP and 92% of those who have been called to accept responsibility have done so. These figures complement the reincorporation data. According to the Agency for Reincorporation and Normalization, 11,130 of the 13,216 former FARC-EP members who laid down their arms—more than 84 percent—remained active in the reintegration program in 2025. Keeping them committed to justice and civilian life reduces the risk of renewed recruitment and violence.
A Broader Peace and Security Strategy
The new administration inherits a severe security and humanitarian crisis. According to the International Committee of the Red Cross, Colombia experienced the worst humanitarian consequences of armed conflict in a decade in 2025. Meanwhile, the Ideas for Peace Foundation estimated that armed organizations had more than 27,000 members by the end of 2025, including armed personnel and support networks—a 23.5 percent increase in a single year. Strengthening security and civilian protection is therefore a legitimate and urgent policy objective.
But Colombia has not ended its armed confrontations through force alone. Military pressure may be necessary, yet future demobilizations will still require communication, negotiated or legally regulated exits from violence, reintegration, legal certainty, and institutions capable of determining responsibility. Rural reform and stronger civilians institutions in conflict-affected territories can reduce the conditions that facilitate recruitment and armed governance.
The policy question, therefore, is not simply whether to defend the JEP. The broader question is whether the government will preserve the institutional architecture needed to honor existing commitments and manage future transitions. Combining lawful security operations with implementation of the 2016 Agreement, which includes victim-centered justice and credible paths for former combatants to reintegrate into civilian life would give the state more tools—not fewer—to reduce violence.
Ana María Mondragón Duque is a Deputy Judge at the Special Jurisdiction for Peace of Colombia. The views expressed here are her own.
This article is published under the sole responsibility of the author, with editorial oversight. The views expressed do not necessarily reflect those of the editorial team or the CEU Democracy Institute.
