Editorial Special Section: ‘Transitional Justice and Nature: A Curious Silence’

Abstract

This Special Section of International Journal of Transitional Justice (IJTJ), ‘Transitional Justice and Nature: A Curious Silence,’ has its origins in extended discussions between the three thematic editors, with initial conversations occurring separately over several professional conferences evolving into collective discussions over shared concerns about the silence around environmental and ecological issues in the transitional justice field. In particular, we found that despite our relative differences across disciplinary perspectives (legal anthropology – international relations – human rights law) and geographic attention (Latin America – Asia – Europe), our respective research efforts pointed to interconnections between human and environmental and ecological concerns affecting transitional justice efforts in postconflict settings. We share the critical understanding that in dominant Euro-Western legal scholarship, the earth and the realm of the more-than-human are rendered visible and accessible to legal intervention, for the most part, only when these phenomena have been translated into the language of natural resources or a commodity with associated value systems embedded in markets and pricing systems. Conservation and environmental laws are often weak accommodations with the dominant transactional systems, bearing the footprint of (neo)colonial practices and property relations.