El article makes an analysis of the murder of social leaders based on the study of two ‘pro-peace policies’, land restitution and the illicit crop substitution programme (PNIS). Based on these two cases, it is argued that the violence committed against land replacement and land restitution leaders is linked to participatory designs that promoted both policies and which did not consider strong local and national oppositions in their implementation, nor were they sufficiently robust to implement the necessary mechanisms to protect leaders’ lives. To support this proposal, the article uses data from the Observatory for the Restitution and Regulation of Agricultural Property Rights on the murder of leaders in Colombia. It also carries out a detailed review of the institutional designs of restitution and substitution based on press information, secondary literature and interviews with policy leaders. The article concludes that the implementation of restitution and replacement did not imply a realignment of state agencies at territorial level and did not redesign the counter-insurgent policies that identified leaders as targets of attack.