A Strategic Communication Approach to Youth Engagement in Transitional Justice in Post-Insurgency Yobe State, Nigeria

The Boko Haram insurgency has inflicted profound disruption on communities in northeast Nigeria, with Gujba Local Government Area (LGA) among the most severely affected. Although transitional justice (TJ) initiatives have been introduced to address human rights violations, youth participation has remained limited and largely symbolic. This article examines the specific roles that young people occupy in TJ processes in Gujba LGA and proposes a strategic communication framework to enhance their substantive engagement. A mixed methods design was employed, with quantitative data from a structured survey of 300 youths (187 male, 113 female) and qualitative insights drawn from 13 key informant interviews. Findings reveal that while 40% of respondents have ever attended TJ events, attendance is typically confined to community reconciliation (60%), with minimal involvement in policy workshops (25%). Youth contributions frequently remain logistical or testimonial rather than consultative. Demographic analysis indicates higher participation among those aged 20–24 and individuals with post-secondary education, whereas farmers and young women face pronounced barriers. Drawing on framing and diffusion theories, the article outlines a seven-step advocacy campaign encompassing tailored messages in local languages, multi-channel dissemination (radio, town criers, mobile messaging) and culturally sensitive formats (women only sessions, youth led media). Preliminary pilot data suggest that targeted messaging can raise awareness from 35% to over 60% and increase active speaking roles among participants by 30%. The proposed framework offers policymakers and practitioners a replicable model for transforming youth from passive observers to active stakeholders in TJ, thereby strengthening the legitimacy and effectiveness of post conflict recovery processes.

This study investigated the role of mediation in grassroots transitional justice processes. The major aim of the study was to understand the role of mediation in transitional justice processes, ascertaining its effectiveness as a grassroots transitional justice mechanism and how its demand for use in transitional justice can be increased. The study was carried out using action research methodologies, with a mediation project carried out in the Makoni District of Manicaland in Zimbabwe. The mediation project involved community members addressing transitional-justice-related conflicts using mediation as a tool for conflict resolution. The mediators were provided with mediation skills through a training programme and their work was evaluated thrice to ascertain the role and impact of the mediation interventions on transitional-justicerelated conflicts. The project was termed Mediation for Everyday Transitional Justice because it was implemented in a natural community’s daily environment, by local people and for the local communities. The continuing failure of transitional justice mechanisms in Zimbabwe amid continued human rights violations justifies the undeniable value of this study. Zimbabwe’s past transitional justice efforts (since 1980, when the country became an independent republic) failed to build sustainable peace hence the country’s continued relapse into political and socio-economic turmoil. However, with appropriate transitional justice interventions that are built on grassroots-informed processes, sustainable peace is conceivable in Zimbabwe. Mediation, as an alternative dispute resolution process that is both persuasive and non-retributive, offers an interesting opportunity to the practice of transitional justice. The research concluded that the role of mediation in transitional justice is to facilitate truth telling, reparations, healing, and reconciliation among disputants without the need to use national-level transitional justice infrastructures. This means that, at the grassroots level, transitional justice processes can take place without waiting for the statist transitional justice approaches. However, in cases where the past human rights violations being addressed are tied to structural violence, driven from outside the community, local mediation processes may not be possible without the consent, cooperation, and willingness of those who sustain such conflicts. In addition, mediation cannot play any significant role in enabling prosecutorial justice, memorialisation, and institutional reforms at the grassroots level. Prosecutorial justice cannot be achieved because perpetrators can withdraw quickly when possibilities exist to be held criminally accountable for past human rights abuses. Institutional reforms also require changing governance policies and practices which are issues beyond the control of specific local communities. The study also observed that mediation is an effective tool for grassroots transitional justice issues because it is efficient, it saves time and financial resources, and it can be undertaken by local actors. To increase its demand and use in transitional justice processes at the grassroots level, these is a need to increase communities’ awareness of the importance of mediation in transitional justice, provide mediation-skills capacity-development interventions to potential mediators, and enhance the agency of various mediation actors at the grassroots levels.

Transitional justice ideas, processes, and institutions offer post-conflict and tormented societies the glimmer of hope of a more stable future erected upon values of the rule of law, accountability, justice, post-conflict reconstruction, and development. Societies wracked by violence see transitional justice as offering the tools to midwife a democratic, rule-of-law state. Broadly speaking, transitional justice can be said to be concerned with how societies address legacies of past human rights abuses, mass atrocity, or other forms of severe social trauma, including genocide or civil war, in order to build a more democratic, just, and peaceful future. Epistemically, the field of transitional justice is variegated, comprising theoretical debates, the comparative assessment of domestic accountability schemes, international criminal justice, the study of truth commissions, and ethical-legal debates concerning the morality of compromise on accountability for gross and systemic violations of human rights. Several subthemes to the discipline suggest the absence of complete coherence in its characterization and praxis. The focus of this article on transitional justice in Africa domesticates the exploration of the subject matter in the African experience. Transitional justice in the African context takes on a special character and orientation. While the core objective of transitional justice praxis in Africa remains similar to transitional justice orthodoxy in the international context—namely, the fight against impunity and the push for accountability and post-conflict reconstruction and development—the emerging consensus points to the effective realization of socioeconomic justice, gender justice, and the right to development as equally critical, if not central, to the redress of past injustices. Instrumental to the successful delivery of this broadened set of objectives is a combination of traditional and nontraditional frameworks embedded in a wide range of laws, policies, institutions, and community norms and customs. In combination, they present the rough contours of an African model and mechanism for not only dealing with the legacies of conflicts and violations of human rights, but also addressing governance deficits and developmental challenges in line with the African Union’s Agenda 2063. This article is structured around a number of themes aimed at deepening appreciation of the field of transitional justice in Africa, namely: Transitional Justice Laws, Policies, and Norms; Transitional Justice Accountability Systems; criminal accountability in Africa’s transitional justice praxis; Human Rights, Democracy, and Governance; Decolonization and Postcoloniality; Conflict and Transitional Justice; Transitional Justice Goals and Outcomes; Reimagining the Field of Transitional Justice; and journals publishing on transitional justice.

ABSTRACTEducation is acknowledged as a component of transitional justice processes, yet details about how to implement education reform in postconflict societies are underexplored and politicized [King, Elisabeth. 2014. From Classrooms to Conflict in Rwanda. New York: Cambridge University Press]. Local and international actors often neglect the complicated nature of education reform in postconflict societies undergoing transitional justice processes [Jones, Briony. 2015. "Educating Citizens in Bosnia-Herzegovina: Experiences and Contradictions in Post-war Education Reform." In Transitional Justice and Reconciliation: Lessons from the Balkans, edited by Martina Fischer, and Olivera Simic, 193–208. New York: Routledge. Transitional Justice]. The role of the diaspora in transitional justice has been increasingly explored as a participatory transnational actor with influence and knowledge about local dynamics [Roht-Arriaza, Naomi. 2006. The Pinochet Effect: Transnational Justice in the Age of Human Rights. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press; Haider, Huma. 2008. “(Re)Imagining Coexistence: Striving for Sustainable Return, Reintegration and Reconciliation in Bosnia and Herzegovina. ”International Journal of Transitional Justice 3 (1): 91–113; Young, Laura, and Rosalyn Park. 2009.“ Engaging Diasporas in Truth Commissions: Lessons from the Liberia Truth and Reconciliation Commission Diaspora Project.” International Journal of Transitional Justice 3 (3): 341–361; Koinova, Maria, and Dženeta Karabegović. 2017.“ Diasporas and Transitional Justice: Transnational Activism from Local to Global Levels of Engagement.” Global Networks 17 (2): 212–233]. This article bridges academic literature about diaspora engagement and transitional justice, and education and transitional justice by incorporating the role of diaspora actors in post-conflict processes. Using empirical data from multi-sited field work in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Switzerland, Sweden, the United Kingdom, and France, it examines diaspora initiatives which aim to influence local transitional justice processes through translocal community involvement in education and youth policy. It argues that diaspora initiatives can provide alternative and intermediate solutions to the status quo in their homeland, with some potential for contributing to transitional justice and reconciliation processes. Ultimately, diaspora initiatives need support from homeland institutions in order to forward transitional justice agendas in post-conflict societies.

ABSTRACTThis article critically examines how multifarious levels of division among victim constituencies have shaped legal and non-legal transitional justice responses to human rights violations. It submits that this division has caused such responses to operate in accordance with the notion of being a ‘victim of’ rather than that of simply being a victim of human rights abuse per se. Expanding from this position, it proffers the theoretical viewpoint that transitional justice responses are premised on the nuanced typologies of being a victim of a particular perpetrator or being a victim of a particular harm or being a victim of particular circumstances. When determining which victims to offer redress to, which victimisers to punish and which harms to repair, these approaches have by necessity fallen back on hierarchies that favour certain victims and harms above others. This process of hierarchisation is multi-layered and involves interplay between ideological, gendered and class-based factors that place certain victims outside the reach of transitional justice discourses and processes. The exclusion of these victims, the article argues, creates an invisibilised category of victims of the peace that fail to benefit from transitional justice processes that struggle to deal with the complexity their situations present.

The impact of conflict and human rights violations have long been felt by children and youth, however, it is only in the past decade that this segment of the population has risen into focus in processes of transitional justice. With its origins in the transitions to democracy that took place in Latin America in the 1980s, the field of transitional justice focuses on the challenge that societies face in dealing with a legacy of mass abuse. Through a combination of approaches—notably truth commissions, reparations, trials, and institutional reform—transitional justice aims to provide recognition to victims and foster civic trust on the path towards long-term objectives of facilitating respect for rule of law, democracy, and a stable peace. Within the work of the International Center for Transitional Justice (ICTJ), factors from two very different contexts, Sierra Leone and Canada, discussed below, pointed out the need to pay greater attention to children and youth and to fashion effective strategies for including children while at the same time protecting them from trauma associated with revisiting an abusive past.

Abstract: This article extends recent academic debates about the sociohistorical entanglements between neoliberalism and human rights by exploring transitional justice processes in Sierra Leone, which followed the country's decade-long civil war (1991-2002). It analyses the ways both the Special Court for Sierra Leone (SCSL) and the Sierra Leone Truth and Reconciliation Commission (SLTRC) drew on 'economic' discourses, variously using the concepts of 'greed', 'corruption' and 'governance' to explain the broader context of the human rights violations with which they were concerned. By critically tracing how these discourses were mobilised, this article shows that neither the SLTRC nor the SCSL challenged the neoliberal vision of human rights. Rather, each process produced a narrative about Sierra Leone's civil war that not only effaced the deleterious role of neoliberal policies in the history of the conflict but also reproduced neoliberal ideas both about conflict and the economy. In this respect, my exploration of the Sierra Leone case demonstrates the importance of paying closer attention to how 'the socioeconomic' is conceptualised and accounted for within transitional justice and broader human rights processes, especially if they are to pose a more adequate challenge to the neoliberal order. Shorter abstract: This article extends recent academic debates about the sociohistorical entanglements between neoliberalism and human rights by exploring transitional justice processes in Sierra Leone after the country's decade-long civil war. The article focuses on the ways both the Special Court for Sierra Leone and the Sierra Leone Truth and Reconciliation Commission drew on discourses of 'greed', 'corruption' and 'governance' to explain the broader socioeconomic context of the human rights violations they were concerned with. The article demonstrates these discourses did not challenge but instead reinforced neoliberal visions of human rights.

The concept and study of transitional justice has grown exponentially over the last decades. Since the Nuremberg and Tokyo trials after the end of the Second World War, there have been a number of attempts made across the globe to achieve justice for human rights violations (International Peace Institute 2013: 10). How these attempts at achieving justice impact whether or not societies reconcile, continues to be one of the key discussions taking place in a transitional justice discourse. One particular context where this debate continues to rage on is in Bosnia and Herzegovina, many scholars argue that the transitional justice process and mechanism employed in Bosnia and Herzegovina have not fostered inter-group reconciliation, but in fact caused more divisions. To this end, this article explores the context of transitional justice in Bosnia and Herzegovina from a unique perspective that focuses on the need for reconciliation and healing after transitional justice processes like war crime prosecutions. This article explores why the prosecuting of war criminals has not fostered reconciliation in Bosnia and Herzegovina and how the processes have divided Bosnian society further. Additionally, this article presents the idea of state-sponsored dialog sessions as a way of dealing with the past and moving beyond the divisions of retributive justice.

The article examines the EU’s policy framework, programs and tools on support to transitional justice, and evaluates their impact and challenges. Transitional justice refers to the various ways of addressing the past human rights violations and serious crimes that occurred in contexts of political transition, such as post-conflict or post-authoritarian situations. The EU has adopted a comprehensive policy framework on support to transitional justice in 2015, which defines its principles, objectives, and modalities of engagement with partner countries and international and regional organisations on transitional justice issues. The EU has also used various instruments and actions to support transitional justice initiatives worldwide, such as providing financial assistance, engaging in political dialogue, offering technical expertise, and advocating for transitional justice norms and standards. The article also illustrates how the EU has supported transitional justice processes in different contexts and regions, such as dealing with the legacy of World War II, the fall of communism in Central and Eastern Europe, the war in the former Yugoslavia, and the Arab Spring. The article concludes by identifying some of the achievements and shortcomings of the EU’s involvement in transitional justice processes, such as contributing to accountability, recognition, trust, reconciliation, and non-recurrence; but also facing inconsistency, selectivity, conditionality, interference, cooptation, politicisation, fragmentation, duplication, etc. The article also suggests some ways to improve the EU’s policy framework, programs and tools on support to transitional justice, such as enhancing consistency, coherence, coordination, complementarity, and adaptability. The article also explores how the EU’s role and approaches in the field of transitional justice can affect its own identity and credibility as a global actor that promotes human rights, democracy, and the rule of law as core values of its external action.

Between 2009 and 2011, the Zimbabwe Human Rights NGO Forum began a daring project on transitional justice. Practically and conceptually, undertaking work on transitional justice in Zimbabwe, particularly in the rural areas, was an exercise of brave hearts at a time when the state did not tolerate any institution that would brook the idea. Transitional justice was a new concept in a country used to widespread rights abuses, and the government did not want to hear about a transitional justice process as it could excite or incite people to demand accountability for everything, including gross human rights violations. Taking Transitional Justice to the People was a flagship outreach programme that sowed the seeds of the current narrative for dealing with the past in Zimbabwe. The Forum had more sceptics in civil society than friends, as very few understood transitional justice or believed it to be a viable option for the Zimbabwean situation. Technically, transitional justice as a practice, process and norm had no local presence. It was viewed as foreign, an imposition from Western countries with the mischievous idea of changing the regime. Yet the citizens wanted the idea, even with little understanding of what was in it for them. A review of the Forum’s outreach programme assists in unravelling the transitional justice practitioner’s paradox in a country that appears not to be undergoing any form of transition.

Transitional justice is an attempt to rise and advance from periods of state-led abuses towards instituting the supremacy of law. Tunisia has a marked history of gross human rights violations. To investigate and proffer solutions to these violations, the country’s Transitional Justice Law, which gave birth to the momentous Truth and Dignity Commission (IVD), was passed in. The Commission was an exceptional transitional justice inaugurated to investigate and expose the truth about gross human rights violations committed from 1955 to 2013. With a focus on the victims of torture, this research examines the extent of the implementation of the TARR model of transitional justice by the Commission. Results revealed that the Commission has succeeded to a considerable extent in revealing the truth about the violations victims of torture have endured. The study, therefore, recommends the demonstration of a stronger political will by the upcoming government for ultimate success.

This article reflects upon the ways in which transitional justice debates and processes impacted Tunisia's transition. It explores key questions such as what demands for justice emerged in the aftermath of the Tunisian revolution? Did Tunisia's transitional justice process reflect these demands? And, did international norms of transitional justice, which emerged from a field of practice that draws heavily upon European, Latin America and Sub‐Saharan experiences, but has largely excluded the Arab Middle East, serve to mediate between competing demands for justice in the aftermath of the Tunisian revolution? It will be argued that transitional justice demands in Tunisia reflected a breakdown in the state–society socioeconomic bargain, which had maintained autocratic regimes since independence in 1956; however, due to the elite‐centred nature of transitional justice discourses, many transitional justice demands never resonated into mainstream transitional justice discourse. We will argue that international transitional justice entrepreneurs' attempt to import a normative framework that was ill suited to grapple with the complex legacies of socioeconomic marginalization, resulted in a growing disillusionment and disengagement from the state driven transitional justice process on the part of Tunisian society.

ABSTRACT∞ Increasingly, transitional justice (TJ) mechanisms are implemented in contexts of ongoing violence where youth are often perceived as victims or perpetrators of human rights violations. This reductionist conceptualization of youth is problematic for understanding the diverse identities of youth in contexts where large-scale human rights violations occur. It also obscures the positive roles of youth as non-State actors in advancing human rights accountability and preventing the recurrence of specific human rights violations. This article explores how youth participation in LUCHA—a countrywide youth movement born from Goma (North Kivu) that advocates for greater political and civic involvement of Congolese—influences youth understandings of justice and contributes to the non-recurrence of specific human rights violations. Using collective participation as a conceptual lens and semi-structured interviews and focus groups conducted in 2015 and 2021 with LUCHA activists, the article contends that overemphasizing State actors eclipses non-State actors’ roles—including youth-led peace and justice initiatives in areas where State actors are inexistent or have weakened legitimacy. The article’s central claim is that ignoring the nexus between youth participation and justice understandings, particularly in contexts of ongoing violence, limits TJ’s full potential to unfold in these contexts. By zooming in on the TJ pillar of Guarantees of Non Recurrence (GoNR), the article is an invitation to further interrogate youth’s roles in TJ contexts and expand the field’s toolkit to accommodate their unique contributions.

Transitional justice has traditionally ignored or sidelined violations of economic and social rights, focussing on violations of civil and political rights as the primary grave human rights violations to be addressed when seeking justice for past atrocities. This paper explores the omission of these rights from the field and uncovers the shortcomings of such an approach. It will argue that there is a need for transitional justice to address both deliberate violations of economic and social rights resulting from conflict or repression, but also structural violations which have acted as root causes of conflict within the State. It is submitted that past experiences of prosecutorial and restorative justice illustrate that violations of economic and social rights have been acknowledged as background information rather than primary concerns for transitional justice. In conclusion it is contended that economic and social rights need to be brought to the foreground of transitional justice processes in order to ensure effective transitional justice which reflects the needs and rights of the local population, and addresses the root causes of conflict, thus preventing conflict reoccurring around the same sources. The inclusion of economic and social rights concerns within transitional justice mechanisms will therefore contribute to a more holistic and inclusive transitional justice process.

The Ethiopian government has committed to a transitional justice process to address gross human rights violations through investigation, prosecution, truth-finding and revelation, reconciliation, conditional amnesty, reparation, and institutional reforms. Despite these efforts and international support, this mechanism will unlikely resolve Ethiopia's political and security issues. The government's lack of intent to cease ongoing conflicts and its continued human rights violations hinder effective participation in implementing the transitional justice process. Furthermore, the involvement of non-state and foreign actors, which are beyond the state’s authority, in gross human rights violations undermines accountability. Victims and witnesses in conflict zones face significant barriers to participation due to the government's limited reach and fear of retribution. Gross human rights violations by the government and the Ethiopian National Defense Force raise doubts about the accountability of civil and military leaders through a government-controlled transitional justice mechanism. To address these challenges, the current government should relinquish power to a transitional government to mitigate undue influence on the justice process, cease hostilities, and hold officials accountable. If the government resists establishing a transitional government, a hybrid court with foreign judges and prosecutors should handle high-profile cases, while domestic courts, with strict measures to ensure impartiality and independence, should address other cases.