'Greening' Transitional Justice?

Abstract

Environmental destruction can act as both a source and consequence of conflict, atrocity, and repression. From resource extraction as a means of funding conflict to the deliberate destruction of habitats relied upon by targeted communities, violence and the environment have a complex relationship which extends far beyond the cessation of hostilities. It is therefore notable that environmental harms are often unseen and under-theorised in the context of transitional justice. This chapter explores this historical invisibility and considers what a turn towards a ‘green’ transitional justice might look like. To do so, it draws connections between critical transitional justice scholarship and the growing field of green criminology, which has sought to challenge the anthropocentrism of dominant framings of crime and harm. In particular, the chapter explores transitional justice’s ‘dominance of legalism’, neocolonial tendencies and ‘liberal imprints’, and interrogates their implications for the visibility of environmental harm.