Theorizing Transitional Justice

This book addresses the theoretical underpinnings of the field of transitional justice, something that has hitherto been lacking both in study and practice. With the common goal of clarifying some of the theoretical profiles of transitional justice strategies, the study is organized along crucial intersections evaluating aspects connected to the genealogy, the nature, the scope and the most appropriate methodology for the study of transitional justice. The chapters also take up normative and political considerations pertaining to specific transitional instruments such as war crime tribunals, truth commissions, administrative purges, reparations, and historical commissions. Bringing together some of the most original writings from established experts as well as from promising young scholars in the field, the collection will be an essential resource for researchers, academics and policy-makers in Law, Philosophy, Politics, and Sociology.

With the common goal of clarifying some of the theoretical profiles of transitional justice strategies, the study is organized along crucial intersections evaluating aspects connected to the genealogy, the nature, the scope and the most appropriate methodology for the study of transitional justice. The specific transitional instruments of war crime tribunals, truth commissions, administrative purges, reparations, and historical commissions are considered. The book brings together some of the most original writings from established experts as well as from promising young scholars in the field.

This collection on transitional justice sits as part of a library of essays on different concepts of ’justice’. Yet transitional justice appears quite different from other types of justice and fundamental ambiguities characterise the term that raise questions as to how it should sit alongside other concepts of justice. This collection attempts to capture and portray three different dimensions of the transitional justice field. Part I addresses the origins of the field which continue to bedevil it. Indeed the origins themselves are increasingly debated in what is an emergent contested historiography of the field that assists in understanding its contemporary quirks and concerns. Part II addresses and sets out parts of the ’tool-kit’ of transitional justice, which could be understood as the canonical research agenda of the field. Part III tries to convey a sense of the way in which the field is un-folding and extending to new transitions, tools, theories of justice, and self-critique.

International Political Theory (IPT) focuses on the point where two fields of study meet - International Relations and Political Theory. It takes from the former a central concern with the 'international' broadly defined; from the latter it takes a broadly normative identity. IPT studies the 'ought' questions that have been ignored or side-lined by the modern study of International Relations and the 'international' dimension that Political Theory has in the past neglected. A central proposition of IPT is that the 'domestic' and the 'international' cannot be treated as self-contained spheres, although this does not preclude states and the states-system from being regarded by some practitioners of IPT as central points of reference. This Handbook provides an authoritative account of the issues, debates, and perspectives in the field, guided by two basic questions concerning its purposes and methods of inquiry. First, how does IPT connect with real world politics? In particular, how does it engage with real world problems, and position itself in relation to the practices of real world politics? And second, following on from this, what is the relationship between IPT and empirical research in international relations? This Handbook showcases the distinctive and valuable contribution of normative inquiry not just for its own sake but also in addressing real world problems. The Oxford Handbooks of International Relations is a twelve-volume set of reference books offering authoritative and innovative engagements with the principal sub-fields of International Relations. The series as a whole is under the General Editorship of Christian Reus-Smit of the University of Queensland and Duncan Snidal of the University of Oxford, with each volume edited by a distinguished pair of specialists in their respective fields. The series both surveys the broad terrain of International Relations scholarship and reshapes it, pushing each sub-field in challenging new directions. Following the example of the original Reus-Smit and Snidal The Oxford Handbook of International Relations, each volume is organized around a strong central thematic by a pair of scholars drawn from alternative perspectives, reading its sub-field in an entirely new way, and pushing scholarship in challenging new directions.

Transitional Justice Theories is the first volume to approach the politically sensitive subject of post-conflict or post-authoritarian justice from a theoretical perspective. It combines contributions from distinguished scholars and practitioners as well as from emerging academics from different disciplines and provides an overview of conceptual approaches to the field. The volume seeks to refine our understanding of transitional justice by exploring often unarticulated assumptions that guide discourse and practice. To this end, it offers a wide selection of approaches from various theoretical traditions ranging from normative theory to critical theory. In their individual chapters, the authors explore the concept of transitional justice itself and its foundations, such as reconciliation, memory, and truth, as well as intersections, such as reparations, peace building, and norm compliance. This book will be of particular interest for scholars and students of law, peace and conflict studies, and human rights studies. Even though highly theoretical, the chapters provide an easy read for a wide audience including readers not familiar with theoretical investigations.

This accessible book analyses transitional justice and discusses how it differs from retributive, corrective, and distributive justice.

Criminal tribunals, truth commissions, reparations, apologies and memorializations are the characteristic instruments in the transitional justice toolkit that can help societies transition from authoritarianism to democracy, from civil war to peace, and from state-sponsored extra-legal violence to a rights-respecting rule of law. Over the last several decades, their growing use has established transitional justice as a body of both theory and practice whose guiding norms and structures encompasses the range of institutional mechanisms by which societies address the wrongs committed by past regimes in order to lay the foundation for more legitimate political and legal order. In Transitional Justice, a group of leading scholars in philosophy, law, and political science settles some of the key theoretical debates over the meaning of transitional justice while opening up new ones. By engaging both theorists and empirical social scientists in debates over central categories of analysis in the study of transitional justice, it also illuminates the challenges of making strong empirical claims about the impact of transitional institutions. Contributors: Gary J. Bass, David Cohen, David Dyzenhaus, Pablo de Greiff, Leigh-Ashley Lipscomb, Monika Nalepa, Eric A. Posner, Debra Satz, Gopal Sreenivasan, Adrian Vermeule, and Jeremy Webber.

Transitional justice is the way societies that have experienced civil conflict or authoritarian rule and widespread violations of human rights deal with the experience. With its roots in law, transitional justice as an area of study crosses various fields in the social sciences. This book is written with this multi- and inter-disciplinary dynamic of the field in mind. The book presents the broad scope of transitional justice studies through a focus on the theory, mechanisms and debates in the area, covering such topics as: The origin, context and development of transitional justice Victims, victimology and transitional justice Prosecutions for abuses and gross violations of human rights Truth commissions Transitional justice and local justice Gender, political economy and transitional justice Apology, reconciliation and the politics of memory Offering a discussion of the impact and outcomes of transitional justice, this approach provides valuable insight for those who seek both an introduction alongside relatively advanced engagement with the subject. Transitional Justice: Theories, Mechanisms and Debates is an important text for postgraduate and advanced undergraduate students who take courses in transitional justice, human rights and criminal law, as well as a systematic reference text for researchers.