The Impact of Transitional Justice in Post-Conflict Environments

Abstract

Transitional justice provides a potential contribution to the statebuilding process that is both forward-looking and backward-looking. In post-conflict situations, there are often demands for justice for past human rights abuses. A range of transitional justice measures, such as trials, truth commissions, and reparations programs, have emerged around the globe as tools to meet these demands. Post-conflict governments, however, are often confronted with perpetrators who remain powerful and who may have been promised amnesty as a precondition of laying down their arms. A range of other practical and political considerations also frequently come into play in the construction of transitional justice policies. As such, there is potential tension between transitional justice and statebuilding with respect to how these measures are structured and the motivations of their architects.