Post-conflict Justice Research Articles

Special Section introduction: intimacies of violence, ex-combatants, and post-conflict justice

Special Section introduction: intimacies of violence, ex-combatants, and post-conflict justice

Social Media, Stereotypes, and the Acknowledgement of War Crimes

ABSTRACT Human rights activists increasingly employ social media to promote post-conflict justice and reconciliation. This study asks what role social media play in facilitating the acknowledgement of war crimes committed by members of one’s ethnicity and what the implications of mediated visibility are. It finds that people are less willing to acknowledge ingroup responsibility for war crimes on social media because they fear being negatively stereotyped by foreign audiences and reputationally undermined. The study sheds light on the unintended negative consequences of mediated visibility of war crimes and counters presumptions of digital universalism showing that implications of visibility are context dependent.

The United Nations War Crimes Commission 1943–1948: A Forgotten Highway to Postconflict Justice?

Abstract: This article offers a critique of the Nuremberg-inspired paradigm of international criminal justice, which focuses on high-profile, top-down approaches to post-conflict accountability. To this end, it appraises the work of the United Nations War Crimes Commission as a "path not taken." We discuss the very different approach to supporting post-conflict justice adopted by the UNWCC—from its original support base beyond the major geopolitical powers, to the impact of its more deliberative system, to the role of the UNWCC as a hub in which new practices of international law were developed. Such an approach had its achievements: the UNWCC assisted in prosecuting significantly more cases than the International Military Tribunals at Nuremberg and Tokyo, as well as the subsequent Nuremberg Military Tribunals, and its structure lent itself to effective use of national expertise and resources. It also had weaknesses and limitations. The Commission was unable to resist great power politics, which eventually led to its demise. We then discuss the implications of such a model for modern-day international criminal justice. While many of the advances made by the UNWCC have echoes in modern-day processes of "convergent evolution," there is much still to learn from examining this period of institutional innovation. Recent efforts to institute "positive complementarity" and more cooperative, facilitatory, and horizontal criminal justice institutions could benefit from exploring the UNWCC model. While it remains strictly within liberal approaches to international criminal justice, we argue that the UNWCC represents a clear alternative to the "Nuremberg model" and contemporary approaches to international criminal law, including the work of the International Criminal Court. Shorter Abstract: This article offers a critique of the 'Nuremberg model', which focuses on high-profile, top-down approaches to post-conflict accountability, in favour of the model offered by the United Nations War Crimes Commission. We discuss its achievements – especially around peer review, sharing best practice, and participation of states outside Western Europe and the US – as well as its weaknesses and limitations in the face of great power resistance. We then discuss its lessons for "positive complementarity" today, with more cooperative, facilitatory, and horizontal (in terms of state influence) forms of post-conflict justice. It offers several possible paths for future development.

Network Analysis of Research Collaboration in the Study of Social Conflict and Peace in Society

Research collaboration in the study of social conflict and peace is essential for advancing knowledge and addressing societal challenges. This paper employs a bibliometric approach to analyze the network of research collaboration in this field, focusing on interdisciplinary perspectives and evolving trends over time. Through network analysis, thematic clusters are identified, including conflict emergence, societal development, global issues, post-conflict justice, and peacebuilding efforts. The temporal component highlights shift in research focus from 2008 to 2014, indicating emerging trends such as peace education and societal belief. Furthermore, the heatmap overlay identifies potential future research topics, with less-explored areas offering opportunities for new contributions. This study provides valuable insights for researchers, policymakers, and practitioners involved in conflict resolution, peacebuilding, and social cohesion initiatives.

Transitional justice at the National Human Rights Commission of Nepal: challenging legitimacy, credibility, and effectiveness

ABSTRACT In the past three decades, national human rights institutions (NHRIs) have becoming an increasingly common feature of transitional and post-conflict justice processes. As institutions designed to promote and protect human rights, they have been afforded a range of responsibilities, including investigating conflict-related human rights violations, assisting with the establishment and functioning of ad hoc mechanisms like truth and reconciliation commissions, and contributing to accountability. Drawing on evidence from the case of Nepal, however, this article demonstrates that engaging in transitional justice processes places NHRIs at considerable risk. It argues, in particular, that the political nature of transitional justice and compromises it inevitably entails can serve to jeopardise the legitimacy, credibility, and effectiveness of NHRIs. The article thus concludes that far greater consideration of the impact that transitional justice has on NHRIs and development of measures to protect their integrity in highly fraught political contexts is required.

The Paradox of Justice: From Transitional to Everyday Justice

Transitional justice lacks a coherent framework for articulating the relationship between distributive and corrective justice. Academic debates remain largely normative, focused on whether and how transitional justice should distinguish itself from the realm of the social, economic, and cultural. Where there is a bridge between legal logics and lived realities, it generally happens through victims’ consultation, but these are often thinly designed processes, revolving around questions like “what do victims want” or failing to turn expectations into action. Taking inspiration from Sally Engle Merry’s “paradox of measurement,” in which measurements produce the realities they assess, we pose a “paradox of justice” in which victims’ lived experiences are filtered and reproduced through the technology of consultation. While important, the question of “what do victims want” ultimately oversimplifies the complexities of how injustice is experienced. Drawing on a unique dataset of everyday indicators of justice from Colombia, this article establishes a framework for articulating the experiential dimensions of post-conflict justice. Ultimately, this framework highlights that justice is a process—whether in the courtroom or in a village reckoning with a massacre—and that the kinds of relationships that justice institutions build with victims are of equal relevance to what these institutions ultimately deliver.

Debunking the Myth of Independence of the NPRC Commissioners in Zimbabwe

Scholars have long been interested in understanding the functions and efficacy of Truth and Reconciliation Commissions (TRCs) in promoting post-conflict justice and reconciliation, particularly in countries emerging from violent conflict. However, less well understood is how issues of autonomy and independence of commissioners condition the efficacy of TRCs. In joining this debate, I contend that how and why certain people are selected to be commissioners of TRCs has an impact on the legitimacy and success or lack thereof of such bodies. The article unpicks how and why the social status of the commissioners, their level of professionalism, independence and their political leanings (neutrality) impact on the integrity, efficacy and legitimacy of TRCs. Drawing on the Zimbabwean case study, I show how loyalty, past and current allegiance, selection criteria (methods) or appointment and conduct of commissioners shape the efficacy of the National Peace and Reconciliation Commission (NPRC). Such an investigation is relevant in contributing to a deeper understanding of the inner workings and legitimacy of TRCs in Africa and beyond as they seek to promote justice and reconciliation in post-conflict contexts.

Justice Now and Later: How Measures Taken to Address Wrongdoings during Armed Conflict Affect Postconflict Justice

ABSTRACT∞ Transitional justice has become a default response when rebuilding postconflict societies. Indeed, to reconcile and move forward, it is argued that societies need to confront the violence of the past. But what factors influence when and how past violence will be addressed? We argue that judicial and quasi-judicial processes initiated while armed conflict is ongoing have a substantial impact on the judicial policies pursued once conflict has ended. Through an analysis of during- and postconflict justice in Colombia since 2000, we demonstrate that a history of addressing human rights violations makes it more likely that transitional justice will be adopted given three mechanisms: policy precedent, institutional repertories and public expectations. We analyse this relationship through global patterns of during- and postconflict justice since 1946. Our findings confirm the expectation that justice polices pursued (or not pursued) during conflict are a strong factor in understanding how the past will be addressed post conflict.

Seeking Justice for Women: Potential and Limits of International Solidarity Movements

Abstract The contribution aims at analysing the role of international solidarity movements in seeking justice for international war crimes against women. Through the example of the ‘comfort women’ case, the article examines the ways in which these international solidarity movements have used international law instruments and institutions to promote the idea of an individual right to reparation as a means by which victims can obtain justice. Two specific legal features of this case show the international solidarity movements’ engagement with international law over the last decades: first, the establishment of the Women’s Tokyo Tribunal, and, second, the judicial mobilisation of international civil society actors before national courts. It is argued that the international solidarity movements have informed the legal concepts, paradigms, and language used to legally analyse the ‘comfort women’ case, and, to a certain extent, they have influenced some recent jurisprudential developments, especially in the legal arguments invoked by the national courts that have decided on the claims of ‘comfort women’. Ultimately, the ‘comfort women’ case demonstrates how the solidarity of international civil society actors towards a specific group of victims can be essential in order, first, to achieve post-conflict justice and, second, to progressively develop international law towards the advancement of legal standards of protection for individuals.

Assessment of the Impact of the National Policy on Displacement on the Resettlement of Women and the Girl-Child in North-Eastern Nigeria

The resolution of conflicts and internecine wars across Africa has often proved enigmatic due to the failure to comprehend, articulate and activate an adequate framework for post-conflict reconstruction. Scholars like Laury Ocen, Olu Arowosegbe, and Elizabeth Mutunga admit that as seen in Sudan, Liberia, Sierra Leone, and other conflict-ridden parts of Africa, post-conflict peace building must become integrative and indigenous in its approach especially as it relates to women and the girl-child. In Nigeria, there appears to be a prevalent difficulty in the interpretation and application of the National Policy on Displacement which unfortunately affects the wellbeing and procedure for the resettlement of displaced women and girl-child. In dissolving these concerns, the study therefore suggests that the roles of governments in rehabilitation and social reconstruction after conflicts as contained in its policy document, should be determined largely by an understanding of the peculiarities of the individuals and agencies involved in post-conflict justice, especially in terms of their worldview, culture and environment. It submits that this will undoubtedly assist in disparaging the monolithic disposition often adopted by governments or its agencies while at the same time assuaging the fears of displaced women and their children.

Closing the ranks: Bondedness, sense of self and moral injury during legacy case prosecutions

This article represents an entry point for the sociological study of protests by British Army veterans opposed to legacy case prosecutions arsing out of the conflict in the North of Ireland. Acknowledging the lack of sociological analysis when compared with recent legal, criminological and political studies, it uses insights from military sociology, the sociology of emotions, and the social movement literature to understand how and why veterans have mobilised against these prosecutions. It argues that veterans have resorted to taking collective action for three reasons: out of loyalty to the handful of veterans currently facing prosecution; because these prosecutions challenge their self-image as peacekeepers; and because of their sense of betrayal by the British government. In making this argument, the article highlights how political and moral contestation over past political violence touches on collective and individual identities constructed during that violence, social solidarity within groups impacted by that violence, and different expectations of post-conflict justice in its aftermath.

Refugee return and social cohesion

Abstract Refugee return often involves the re-encounter of individuals who were separated for years, but we know little about its impact on social cohesion. We explore this impact using data from a nationwide survey that we conducted in Burundi, a country that experienced high levels of repatriation during the 2000s. We find that refugee return has a negative impact on the feeling that community members help each other, could borrow money for emergencies from non-household members, and the feeling that the community is peaceful. The impacts on measures of reconciliation, post-conflict justice, trust, and participation in community groups are mostly statistically insignificant. We also explore how these effects differ across different sub-samples based on ethnic composition, pre-war land scarcity, and attitudes towards return. The results highlight the possible role of new migration-related societal divisions in affecting post-return social cohesion.

Wielding the Gavel or Balancing the Scales? Domestic Legal Systems and Post-Conflict Justice

This study analyzes the institutional variation across domestic legal systems, with a focus on common law system’s adherence to precedent and reduced recourse to judicial deference, as well as on the degree of independence afforded to courts. These institutional qualities of judiciaries provide the opportunity for courts to play a more active role in the implementation of post-conflict justice, increasing uncertainty for other policymakers concerning the ultimate contours of post-conflict justice processes. To reduce such uncertainty, policymakers ensconced in these types of institutional contexts will be less likely to implement post-conflict justice. Using data from the Post-Conflict Justice dataset, we find that states with common law systems are less likely to pursue and implement post-conflict justice compared to states with civil or Islamic law systems. Moreover, independent courts will be less likely to pursue mixed or restorative forms post-conflict justice, though the impact of judicial independence is weak overall.

The Zimbabwe Peace and Reconciliation Commission: Towards an integrated national infrastructure for peace?

ABSTRACT The National Peace and Reconciliation Commission (NPRC) in Zimbabwe is potentially a crucial architect of coordinated and integrated infrastructure for peace (I4P). But it is not without its critics and sceptics. The Commission is the institutional centrepiece of government’s post-conflict justice, peace, healing and reconciliation programme. It is mandated with developing national and sub-national architecture to drive the peacebuilding agenda. The NPRC is relatively young and is in the process of emplacing structures to acquire the organisational capacity to execute its mandate efficaciously within major constraints. While statist, top-down approaches are hardly sufficient to build peace, the Commission is evolving into a broad peace infrastructure, weaving horizontal and vertical relationships with various local stakeholders with the assistance of international partners. The NPRC is leading Zimbabwe’s I4P project in a context-specific manner that promotes the principles of national and local ownership, inclusivity, gender mainstreaming, cooperation and capacity building for sustainability. The Commission, notwithstanding its well-documented weaknesses, has achieved important milestones towards a prospective integrated national I4P. This article broadens the existing literature on the NPRC by examining milestones in the implementation of its mandate, particularly demonstrating how it is morphing into a potential cornerstone of a broad national I4P with external support.

Retributive or reparative justice? Explaining post-conflict preferences in Kenya

In states emerging from mass violence and human rights abuses, do individuals prefer retributive punishment of perpetrators through trials, or do they wish to be compensated with land or monetary reparations for their injuries? How does the concrete option of prosecutions by the International Criminal Court (ICC) moderate these preferences? Using unique survey data from 507 Kenyans collected in 2015, we build on and add nuance to the empirical literature that interrogates the link between exposure to mass violence and post-conflict justice preferences. We find that while some individuals prefer reparative justice, victims and witnesses generally want perpetrators to be prosecuted. Even for those who are co-ethnics of government leaders – who allegedly instigated widespread killing, sexual assaults and displacements – direct exposure to those acts leads to greater desire for prosecutions. We further find that one’s personal experience with violence also leads one to reject domestic justice in favor of international justice: victims and witnesses who favored retributive justice are highly likely to believe that the ICC is the best option for prosecuting perpetrators.

Violações dos direitos indígenas e os limites da justiça de transição no Brasil

The redemocratization process in Brazil did not make it possible to obtain the truth about the civil-military dictatorship. This article analyzes Post-Conflict Justice process in Brazil, with an emphasis on the analysis of violations of indigenous rights and deaths caused by direct actions or omissions by the Brazilian State. Some forms of violations perpetrated by agents of the Indian Protection Service and the National Indian Foundation were analyzed, which are included in the Figueiredo Report, a set of historical sources analyzed in the research. Reports of violations against the Aikewara indigenous people in the context of the Araguaia guerrilla were also analyzed. In the analysis it was found that there is an imminent need to move forward in search of memory, truth, reparation, and justice for indigenous peoples. Therefore, understanding the advances and limits of transitional justice for indigenous peoples is essential in improving our democracy.

How Humanitarian and Stabilization Actors Contribute (Unwittingly?) to Post-Conflict Justice

The construction of victimhood after conflict is contentious and relies in part upon public recognition. This article argues that humanitarian and stabilization actors often provide this recognition and thereby contribute to the construction of post-conflict conceptions of victimhood. It analyses how key operational documents produced by humanitarian and stabilization actors in Iraq during the period of conflict with the Islamic State (2014–2017) constructed and recognized a particular profile of victim, and only certain perpetrators. This resulted in the exclusion and silencing of complex victims and contributed to the tolerance of violence directed against them. The article concludes with some reflections on the implications of these findings for practitioners.

Justice, emotions, and solidarity

ABSTRACT This paper discusses Habermas’s argument that justice requires solidarity as its ‘reverse side’, whereby the former provides the necessary global framework for establishing intersubjective solidarity whilst the latter constitutes an important precondition for igniting social and political change in the direction of social justice. In this paper I argue that such a paradigm of reciprocity might be fruitfully complemented by a less apparent yet substantial nexus: that between solidarity and perceived injustice, which I contend also triggers the emergence of solidarity. Drawing from Arendt’s thematisation of solidarity as a principle that stems from human suffering and recent scholarship on transitional post-conflict justice, I analyse the negative and reactive aspect of solidarity and the role of negative emotions in its emergence.

Effective Citizenship, Civil Action, and Prospects for Post-Conflict Justice in Yemen

A woman takes on work repairing cell phones in a small town in the southern governorate of Lahj. In Aden, an ‘aqīla (neighborhood representative) refuses to authorize the marriage of an underage girl. In a rural village outside of Sana'a, women petition the shaykh for permission to build a community center in which they can market home crafts to other women. Young women and men in Ibb and in Hadramawt work as volunteer teachers and coordinate with very different municipal authorities to ensure children can learn. And in the divided city of Taiz, a youth organization trains internally displaced Yemenis in the maintenance of the solar technologies that are keeping the city running.

Reconciliation Versus Justice? It Depends on the Context: The Role of Symmetric and Asymmetric Violence in Predicting Postconflict Attitudes

Whether attitudes toward postconflict justice and reconciliation are complementary or contradictory has been long debated. We posit that the answer to this question is context-dependent. Multilevel analyses of two large-scale surveys among war-affected communities in the former Yugoslavia (total N = 11,843), combined with geo-coded data on conflict events, demonstrate that a crucial contextual determinant is the prevalence of asymmetric violence in communities: The more a community was exposed to events of asymmetric violence, which disproportionately affect one group, the more the support for justice was linked to rejecting reconciliation. These findings were conceptually replicated with two different data sets and different operationalizations of justice and reconciliation attitudes. Conversely, in one study, the more a community was exposed to symmetric violence, which affects members of all adversary groups, the more the justice and reconciliation were perceived as compatible. This study shows the importance of a contextualized approach to understanding intergroup attitudes in postconflict settings.