21. Justice Mosaics: How Context Shapes Transitional Justice in Fractured Societies - Report
- Author:
- Roger Duthie
- Publication Date:
- 05-2017
- Content Type:
- Special Report
- Institution:
- The International Center for Transitional Justice (ICTJ)
- Abstract:
- The contexts in which societies attempt to address legacies of massive human rights violations—by confronting impunity, seeking effective redress, and preventing recurrence—are integral to the concept of transitional justice. Such contexts can vary widely: they can include ongoing conflicts, post-authoritarian transitions, post-conflict transitions, and post-transitional periods. They can also differ in terms of institutional and political fragility as well as levels of economic and social development. Broad policy objectives in such contexts can range from rule-of-law promotion to conflict resolution, peacebuilding, vindication and protection of human rights, democratization, development, and social change. As the term suggests, however, the contexts in which societies undertake transitional justice processes are usually to some degree transitional. This is important because transitions create opportunities for addressing past injustice, while at the same time they retain continuities with the past that pose constraints or obstacles for doing so. The fact that context varies is important because the broader context affects the objectives of transitional justice efforts as well as the processes through which they develop, which in turn affect the specific responses that are most appropriate and feasible in each setting. Here processes refer to the different ways in which ideas and movements develop, promote, and coalesce in demands for accountability, acknowledgment, and reform in the aftermath of massive human rights violations.
- Topic:
- Reform, Criminal Justice, Institutions, Justice, Reparations, Gender, Truth and Reconciliation, and Youth Engagement
- Political Geography:
- Africa, Europe, Middle East, Asia, South America, and North Africa