Transitional Justice Practice Research Articles

Political Forgiveness’ Transformative Potentials

The aim of this paper is to contribute to the theoretical and empirical understandings of the role that political forgiveness plays in the post-conflict and post-authoritarian societies. The paper provides a discussion of the complexities of the concept of political forgiveness, and offers empirical examples that demonstrate the different capacities and potentials that political forgiveness has as a mode of social reconciliation and repair the past injustice. It argues that today, with the accumulation of experience in the practice of transitional justice, and the growing importance of human rights regime, considering of forgiveness through the accountability’s lens is very timely and important. After the discussion of the contribution of forgiveness to societal reconstruction in the post-conflict and post-authoritarian societies, the paper focuses on the role of forgiveness as an essential part of justice and solidarity. By scrutinising forgiveness’ links with reconciliation and justice, the paper offers a comprehensive way to assess the nature of preconditions and the role of forgiveness in addressing the past injustice and overcoming divisions in post-conflict societies. Its discussion of empirical findings on the role that forgiveness opens up a debate about risks and costs involved in a policy of forgiveness in newly democratised countries.

From Transitional to Transformative Justice: A New Agenda for Practice

Transitional justice has become a globally dominant lens through which to approach states addressing legacies of a violent past. An industry of praxis has emerged, supported by dedicated nongovernmental organizations and large-scale funding from western donors. Yet, the performance and impact of transitional justice mechanisms have been at best ambiguous and at times disappointing. This article proposes a new agenda for practice, one that offers a concept of justice that is more ‘transformative’ than ‘transitional.’ The article starts by setting out the limitations of transitional justice, and recent responses to these limitations in transitional justice practice. A definition of transformative justice draws on this discussion as well as insights from related fields such as peace building and conflict transformation. A final section of the article, on tools for transformative justice, provides practical guidance on how to implement a more transformative transitional justice.

The Violence of Peace: Ethnojustice in Northern Uganda

ABSTRACTTraditional justice, or what this article refers to as ‘ethnojustice’, claims to promote social reconstruction, peace and justice after episodes of war by rebuilding traditional order. Ethnojustice has become an increasingly prominent mode of transitional justice in northern Uganda. As such interventions multiply throughout Africa, it is essential to probe their political and practical consequences. This article situates ethnojustice theoretically within the broader discourse, practice and institutions of transitional justice, and historically within the reaction against orthodox liberal transitional justice from within the industry. Through an engagement with ethnojustice texts and interventions in the Acholi region of northern Uganda, the article argues that ethnojustice can end up extending forms of unaccountable, patriarchal power within Acholi society, funded and supported by the Ugandan state and international donors. In addition to underpinning this project of social discipline, ethnojustice also benefits the Ugandan state in its effort to avoid accountability for its violence during the war.

Engineering Grassroots Transitional Justice in the Balkans

The initiative to establish a truth commission in the successor states of the former Yugoslavia (RECOM) presents a rich case study of the performance of the “toolkit” that transitional justice professionals propose on a global scale: an inclusive package that offers truth, justice, reconciliation and stability. Whether these goals could be achieved is the subject of a critical debate that questions overly ambitious projects of truth commissions, especially their sensitivity to local understandings and practices of transitional justice. We aim to contribute to this debate by examining the reception of RECOM in Kosovo, where most local actors remain either noncommittal or outright opposed to RECOM. What these actors share is the conviction that their own narratives be taken seriously, even when this means refusing the suppression of “truths” that can be divisive. We found that giving priority to “the local” implies more than adapting the received professional “toolkit”: it might require abandoning it.

Advancing Feminist Positioning in the Field of Transitional Justice

This article contributes to an ongoing conversation among feminist scholars about what constitutes feminist positioning with regard to the central issues that define transitions from conflict or repression towards more liberal polities. The analysis suggests that the feminist presence in transitional justice is complex, multilayered and still in the process of full engagement. Concentrating on the genealogy of this presence, the article reflects on what are commonly invoked scholarly and policy reference points, showing how little gender analysis and women’s issues entered into the discursive fray in the public and political arenas where the terminology of accountability emerged. The challenge in assessing feminist positioning is that an uncritical and narrowly liberal conception of gender equality directs our gaze away from the cultural, material and geopolitical sites in which transitional justice practices have emerged. The article explores the connections between transitional justice and identification of harms done to women, the importance of acknowledging these harms and the need to centre discussions of agency and autonomy in feminist approaches to structural political change in deeply divided societies.

Beyond trial justice in the former Yugoslavia

The arrest of Ratko Mladić on 26 May 2011 and his almost immediate deportation to the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) has underscored the significance of international legal institutions to the enactment of transitional justice. In this commentary we will seek to illustrate some alternative discourses and practices of transitional justice emerging across the former Yugoslavia. In particular we analyse a 6‐year initiative led by civil society groups to establish a truth commission for the former Yugoslavia, entitled the ‘Regional Commission for Establishing the Facts about War Crimes and Other Gross Violations of Human Rights Committed on the Territory of the former Yugoslavia’ (or RECOM). In so doing, we illuminate a number of areas of geographical concern in the study of transitional justice: from the lingering significance of state sovereignty to the imagined geographies of regional cooperation.

'I cannot accept what I have not done': Storytelling, Gender and Transitional Justice

Storytelling can be a process of seeking social equilibrium after violence. We examine this proposition through the stories of Ajok, an Acholi woman who was abducted by the rebel group, the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) in northern Uganda and who was forced into marriage and motherhood. We consider how her stories contest discrimination by her neighbours and family since her return, creatively reinterpreting the past to defend her innocence and moral character throughout the war and to defend her rightful place in present society as an Acholi woman and mother. The article concludes by reflecting on the value of locally based and culturally relevant storytelling for survivors in the field and practice of transitional justice.

Transitional Justice and Displacement

Abstract 1 The displacement of people from their homes and communities as a result of conflict and human rights abuses is an important factor in the contexts in which transitional justice normally operates. Yet, it is one that has not figured prominently in either the literature or the practice of transitional justice. This article is an attempt to think through how transitional justice fits within the broader response to the problem of displacement. It argues that transitional justice can and should address displacement, but in doing so it must take into account and establish links with other relevant actors. The first section of the article considers some of the reasons why displacement, as a human rights issue, is of concern to transitional justice, as well as some examples of transitional justice measures that have dealt with displacement. The following two sections raise questions about the capacity of transitional justice measures meaningfully to engage displaced persons and their concerns. The next three sections then try to identify some linkages between transitional justice measures and the work of displacement actors, including potential tensions, opportunities for cooperation and coordination and avenues of mutual reinforcement. The article concludes with a broader perspective on how transitional justice may conceptually fit within a comprehensive and coherent approach to displacement.

Social repair in divided societies: integrating a coexistence lens into transitional justice

This paper explores the importance of integrating a coexistence lens into transitional justice theory and practice. Transitional justice seeks to address a legacy of large-scale past abuses. In societies that have suffered from violent intergroup conflict, this legacy includes divided communities and widespread distrust and fear of the ‘other’. Transitional justice processes and mechanisms, however, are unlikely to repair intergroup relationships, transform communities or eliminate tensions in the absence of specific attention to promote coexistence. The field of coexistence provides a framework for thinking about intergroup relations and interdependence. Coexistence initiatives—such as dialogue facilitation, intergroup projects and associations aimed at achieving shared goals, and media campaigns designed to reframe the ‘other’—are essential to restoring trust, transforming perceptions and rebuilding relationships. Looking at countries that have experienced violent intergroup conflict, in particular Bosnia and Herzegovina, the paper provides examples of coexistence initiatives that have achieved successes in changing attitudes, repairing relationships and strengthening communities—and discusses their potential to contribute to transitional justice processes and mechanisms.

The political geographies of transitional justice

This paper examines how geographers can contribute to debates concerning transitional justice. Recent scholarship in criminology has identified a residual ‘legalism’ in the enactment and study of transitional justice: trial processes and the perspectives of jurists have been prioritised over wider processes of social healing and the perceptions of non‐legal actors. This paper explores how geographers can contribute to challenging this prioritisation of legal processes within the study and practice of transitional justice. This is achieved through an examination of attempts to establish forms of transitional justice in Bosnia and Herzegovina since the end of the war in 1995. Specifically, the paper explores the establishment in 2005 of the War Crimes Chamber of the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina and the civil society‐based strategies it has employed to reach out to witnesses and victim populations. The paper makes two interlinked arguments. First, it examines how the international response to the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina placed justice at a distance from victim communities. Second, the paper argues that civil society activities undertaken to widen access to justice have opened up new spaces of deliberation and critique. It is argued that these spatialities point to possibilities of deliberative conceptions of justice fostered beyond legal institutions and processes.

Utopian Dreams or Practical Possibilities? The Challenges of Evaluating the Impact of Memorialization in Societies in Transition

For countries rebuilding in the wake of violence and repression, memorials, museums and places of memory represent a critical terrain where the past is confronted and conflict can be addressed. Memorialization, however, has not always been as intentional and strategic as other transitional justice practices, and evaluation of its impact is limited. This article focuses on the work of the International Coalition of Sites of Conscience and an evaluation of the youth programs of three of its members: the Liberation War Museum in Bangladesh, the Monte Sole Peace School in Italy and the Villa Grimaldi Peace Park in Chile. The evaluation found that the sites had a number of impacts on the young people who visited them, including changing opinions, raising awareness, improving relationships, encouraging civic engagement and increasing emotional understanding of the human consequences of atrocity. The article questions how such impacts relate to wider social processes (for example, human rights reform, violence prevention and transitional justice) and how social and political processes affect the potential for individual and group impacts. It argues that transitional processes can make better use of the specific resources memorial sites have to offer.

Justice and Transition in Mississippi: Opening the Books on the American South

Mississippi's contemporary revisiting of racial violence that marred the state's transition from a white supremacist political order, colloquially known as Jim Crow, to a post-Jim Crow polity constitutes a valuable case study for transitional justice scholarship and practice. It is within the context of an often overlooked yet violently contested transition that transitional justice discourses have increasingly permeated debates on how, and even whether or not, to confront Mississippi's violent past. Mississippi's recent attempts to confront past abuses through criminal prosecutions and non-state community-based initiatives provides an important insight into the limits of criminal prosecutions and a growing turn towards the establishment of a truth commission to confront past human rights abuses perpetrated within the state.

Facing a Bloody Past Discourses and Practices of Transitional Justice

Countries with bloody pasts attempting to reinvent their national ethos have found hope in the idea of transitional justice. The restorative practices of reconciliation, reparation programs, and memorialization are the typical means by which countries attempt to address issues of responsibility and accountability. Using a variety of national experiences, this chapter distinguishes between restorative and retributive genres, with focus on how restorative discourses and practices inform the forensic rhetoric of transitional justice. It also sheds light on the political and ethical limitations of non-retributive approaches to justice and the challenges of achieving any kind of justice in cases of large-scale atrocities. In sum, this chapter provides an overview of and a rhetorical framework for engaging in scholarship about transitional justice.

DDR and transitional justice: bridging the divide?

This article explores the complex relationship between disarmament, demobilisation and reintegration of ex-combatants (DDR) and transitional justice. While both DDR and transitional justice often operate simultaneously, neither process has traditionally been designed with the other in mind. In fact, they are often in tension or competition, pursuing competing demands and potentially drawing on the same scarce donor pools. While scholars and practitioners of transitional justice have become somewhat attuned to the presence of DDR processes in countries emerging from conflict, and the challenges and opportunities they present for transitional justice, we observe that by comparison, it is only fairly recently that DDR policies, if not programmes, have begun to take account of the demands and practice of transitional justice. We argue that while the activities of DDR and transitional justice may often be in tension, in some instances they might be designed to operate in a more complementary fashion. However, for this to even be conceivable, it is essential that scholars and practitioners of each seek to understand the work of the other better.

The International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia: The Promise and Reality of Reconciliation in Croatia

The international community is increasingly interested in promoting post-conflict reconciliation in a variety of forms, with trials and truth commissions featured most prominently. The contemporary academic discussion over transitional justice (and the practice of transitional justice itself) is largely focused on whether and how these types of large-scale national transitional justice mechanisms contribute to reconciliation. This article examines the promise and reality of the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) to contribute to national reconciliation. Ultimately, the ability of state-wide policies to contribute to reconciliation rests on the active participation of local level actors. This requires political backing at the state and local level beyond that of just the international community. More attention needs to be paid to domestic cultural factors in the initial decision to implement state-wide transitional justice procedures, and bottom-up mechanisms must be built into any large scale approach to reconciliation.

Forgiveness and Reconciliation in Transitional Justice Practices

In the last decades, the notions of forgiveness and reconciliation have been applied more and more in the public sphere. This paper claims that for- giveness in transitional justice practices is often difficult if not impossible to achieve, and that it could generate counterproductive processes. It is unclear what 'collective forgiveness' is, if it is a realistic concept at all. The expectation of for- giveness seems to generate much resistance, even when former oppressors take up responsibility or show regret. Often past-sensibilities are too strong, and in many victim-groups self-respect is lacking. Moreover, the role of emotions in pub- lic (and mediated) settings remains obscure. These complexities raise the question of whether forgiveness is an appropriate ideal to aim at in transitional justice prac- tices, especially when participants are involved in attempts at reconciliation in more or less coercive ways. To give up the ideal of forgiveness, however, does not imply that reconciliation is unattainable. Alternative accounts of reconciliation are pre- sented which do not start from forgiveness. These alternative accounts show that reconciliation is possible, but it seems important for former victims to regain some sense of self-worth and recognition by others first. Only then people can enter into the long process of rebuilding relationships of trust with former wrongdoers.

Restorative Justice and Reparations

In her book Between Vengeance and Forgiveness, Martha Minow begins a chapter on reparations with a brief discussion of restorative justice. She characterizes restorative justice as seeking “repair of social connections and peace rather than retribution against offenders;” she describes it as “building connections and enhancing communication between perpetrators and those they victimized, and forging ties across the community. . . .” Later in the same chapter, however, when talking about monetary reparations, Minow says the “core idea” behind reparations is compensatory justice, the view that “wrongdoers should pay victims for losses” to wipe the slate clean. Several recent discussions of reparations for historical injustice and mass political violence reject the idea that compensatory or, as I will call it, corrective justice is the relevant or primary category for reparations involving groups or large numbers of individual victims of injustice. Roy Brooks considers the “tort model” of pursuing compensation from institutions and private parties through legal action, a secondary, morally deficient and relatively unpromising avenue. He advances an “atonement model” of reparations premised on “the post-Holocaust vision of heightened morality, victim-perpetrator identity, egalitarianism, and restorative justice.” Although Brooks does not define restorative justice, his account of atonement makes apology central and sees monetary and other reparations as necessary to make apologies believable. Janna Thompson situates her argument for historical obligations to repair past wrongs, such as the theft of lands from indigenous people or the injustice of slavery, in a conception of “reparation as reconciliation” in contrast to a “legalistic” one of “reparation as restoration.” The aim of reparations on this view is “to repair relations damaged by injustice— not to return to a state of affairs that existed before the injustice was done.” Ruti Teitel, in her extensive study of transitional justice practice, finds that “reparatory practices have become the leading response in the contemporary wave of political transformation,” but that reparatory practices in political transition “defy categorization as either criminal or corrective justice” by both redressing individual rights violations and signifying responsibility for criminal wrongdoing. Naomi Roht-Arriaza appeals to “a basic maxim of law that harms should be remedied” in a discussion of reparations for mass violence, but argues that individual court-ordered reparations are both impractical in cases where there are many victims and inadequate to address collective elements of harm in situations of mass conflict or repression where communities are targeted for violence and are

The conceptual nexus of human rights and democracy in the Polish lustration Debates 1989–97

The practice of transitional justice in Poland has been closely linked to the process of democratization, but the nature and dynamics of that relationship have remained hotly contested. While both the opponents and the proponents of so-called ‘lustration’ justified their positions in the vocabulary of liberal democracy, they tended to approach the concepts of rights and democracy from two theoretically distinct positions. The debates surrounding this issue revealed and solidified the post-communist cleavage within the group of the former dissidents in regard to their normative theorization of democracy, and a characteristic of this cleavage was polarization of the concepts of restorative justice and retributive justice.