Postconflict + Transitional Justice
Key readings and relevant reports:
From the Neocolonial ‘Transitional’ to Indigenous Formations of Justice (International Journal of Transitional Justice (2013) 7 (2): 197-204) is Abdullahi Ahmed An-Na‘im's thought piece on the efficacy of transitional justice absent indigenous considerations:
"What is just and expedient in any given context must fit the injustice it is supposed to redress in the pragmatic realities of the situation. The premise of the approach I am questioning above is the presumed progression of former colonies into postcolonial stability and conditional eligibility for a relative degree of democratization and entry into a free market economy. This approach is neither likely to serve its alleged purpose of successful transition from one phase to the next in the presumed progression nor likely to succeed in realizing justice by any definition of the term in a post-violent-conflict situation. The transition model is false because there are in fact no predetermined phases for societies to go through in progression. It is also problematic because it is by definition intended to exclude indigenous conceptions of justice, regardless of the democratic will of the population"Judiciary Involvement in Authoritarian Repression and Transitional Justice: The Spanish Case in Comparative Perspective is Paloma Aguilar's look at a lack of judicial accountability is complicit in the lack of accountability for human rights violations in transitional spaces. (International Journal of Transitional Justice (2013) 7 (2): 245-266). The author seeks to "assess whether a greater degree of legal repression and direct judicial involvement in repression explains why there is more resistance to prosecuting those responsible for human rights violations, establishing truth commissions or annulling the political sentences of the past during democratization. Once democracy has been consolidated, different dynamics may emerge, but this history of judicial complicity has proved to be a key factor in understanding the continuous lack of judicial accountability in Spain."
Notes from the Field: Silence Kills! Women and the Transitional Justice Process in Post-Revolutionary Tunisia (Doris H. Gray and Terry Coonan, International Journal of Transitional Justice (2013) 7 (2): 348-357) is a look at the Arab Spring revolution in Tunisia and involves analysis of a "collection of testimonies of female former political prisoners in Tunisia .... aimed at contributing to an authentic Tunisian process of transitional justice that takes cultural, religious and gender-based norms into consideration. To date, the voices of conservative Islamist women detained under the Tunisian dictatorship have been significantly absent from the national discourse on transitional justice."
- Multiple Temporalities in Indigenous Justice and Healing Practices in Mozambique (Victor Igreja, International Journal of Transitional Justice, (2012) 6 (3): 404-422)
- Beyond Conventional Transitional Justice: Egypt's 2011 Revolution and the Absence of Political Will (Reem Abou-El-Fadl, International Journal of Transitional Justice, (2012) 6(2): 318-330)
- Hopes and Uncertainties: Liberia’s Journey to End Impunity (Aaron Weah, International Journal of Transitional Justice, (2012) 6(2): 331-343).
Increasing Women's Access to Justice in Post-Conflict Societies, UN Chronicle, discusses how the rule of law still outrules women and suggests concrete interventions to promote access for women and gender equality in postconflict spaces.