United States Law And Policy On Transitional Justice

Since the end of the Cold War, the United States has been a key driver of transitional justice. It has provided crucial political backing, as well as technical and financial assistance for trials, truth commissions, and other measures aimed at helping societies address serious human rights violations. Surprisingly, however, scholars have not analyzed closely the role of the US in transitional justice. This book offers the first systematic and cross-cutting account of US foreign policy on transitional justice. It explores the development of US foreign policy on the field from World War I to the present, and provides an in-depth examination of US involvement in measures in Cambodia, Liberia, and Colombia. Annie Bird supports her findings with nearly 200 interviews with key US and foreign government officials, staff of transitional justice measures, and country experts. By "opening the black box" of US foreign policy, the book shows how the diverse and evolving interests of presidential administrations, Congress, the State Department, and other agencies play a major role in shaping US involvement in transitional justice. The book argues that, despite multiple influences, US foreign policy on transitional justice is characterized by a distinctive approach that is symbolic, retributive, and strategic. As the book concludes, this approach has influenced the field as a whole, including the establishment, design, and implementation of transitional justice measures.

In United States Law and Policy on Transitional Justice: Principles, Politics, and Pragmatics, Zachary D. Kaufman explores the U.S. government's support for, or opposition to, certain transitional justice institutions. By first presenting an overview of possible responses to atrocities (such as war crimes tribunals) and then analyzing six historical case studies, Kaufman evaluates why and how the United States has pursued particular transitional justice options since World War II. This book challenges the "legalist" paradigm, which postulates that liberal states pursue war crimes tribunals because their decision-makers hold a principled commitment to the rule of law. Kaufman develops an alternative theory-"prudentialism"-which contends that any state (liberal or illiberal) may support bona fide war crimes tribunals. More generally, prudentialism proposes that states pursue transitional justice options, not out of strict adherence to certain principles, but as a result of a case-specific balancing of politics, pragmatics, and normative beliefs. Kaufman tests these two competing theories through the U.S. experience in six contexts: Germany and Japan after World War II, the 1988 bombing of Pan Am flight 103, the 1990-1991 Iraqi offenses against Kuwaitis, the atrocities in the former Yugoslavia in the 1990s, and the 1994 Rwandan genocide. Kaufman demonstrates that political and pragmatic factors featured as or more prominently in U.S. transitional justice policy than did U.S. government officials' normative beliefs. Kaufman thus concludes that, at least for the United States, prudentialism is superior to legalism as an explanatory theory in transitional justice policymaking.

"[This book] explores the U.S. government's support for, or opposition to, certain transitional justice institutions. By first presenting an overview of possible responses to atrocities (such as war crimes tribunals) and then analyzing six historical case studies, Kaufman evaluates why and how the United States has pursued particular transitional justice options since World War II. This book challenges the "legalist" paradigm, which postulates that liberal states pursue war crimes tribunals because their decision-makers hold a principled commitment to the rule of law. Kaufman develops an alternative theory - "prudentialism"--Which contends that any state (liberal or illiberal) may support bona fide war crimes tribunals. More generally, prudentialism proposes that states pursue transitional justice options, not out of strict adherence to certain principles, but as a result of a case-specific balancing of politics, pragmatics, and normative beliefs. Kaufman tests these two competing theories through the U.S. experience in six contexts: Germany and Japan after World War II, the 1988 bombing of Pan Am flight 103, the 1990-1991 Iraqi offenses against Kuwaitis, the atrocities in the former Yugoslavia in the 1990s, and the 1994 Rwandan genocide. Kaufman demonstrates that political and pragmatic factors featured as or more prominently in U.S. transitional justice policy than did U.S. government officials' normative beliefs. Kaufman thus concludes that, at least for the United States, prudentialism is superior to legalism as an explanatory theory in transitional justice policymaking."--Jacket.

Law has become the vehicle by which countries in the 'developing world', including post-conflict states or states undergoing constitutional transformation, must steer the course of social and economic, legal and political change. Legal mechanisms, in particular, the instruments as well as concepts of human rights, play an increasingly central role in the discourses and practices of both development and transitional justice. These developments can be seen as part of a tendency towards convergence within the wider set of discourses and practices in global governance. While this process of convergence of formerly distinct normative and conceptual fields of theory and practice has been both celebrated and critiqued at the level of theory, the present collection provides, through a series of studies drawn from a variety of contexts in which human rights advocacy and transitional justice initiatives are colliding with development projects, programmes and objectives, a more nuanced and critical account of contemporary developments. The book includes essays by many of the leading experts writing at the intersection of development, rights and transitional justice studies. Notwithstanding the theoretical and practical challenges presented by the complex interaction of these fields, the premise of the book is that it is only through engagement and dialogue among hitherto distinct fields of scholarship and practice that a better understanding of the institutional and normative issues arising in contemporary law and development and transitional justice contexts will be possible. The book is designed for research and teaching at both undergraduate and graduate levels. ENDORSEMENTS An extraordinary collection of essays that illuminate the nature of law in today's fragmented and uneven globalized world, by situating the stakes of law in the intersection between the fields of human rights, development and transitional justice. Unusual for its breadth and the quality of scholarly contributions from many who are top scholars in their fields, this volume is one of the first that attempts to weave the three specialized fields, and succeeds brilliantly. For anyone working in the fields of development studies, human rights or transitional justice, this volume is a wake-up call to abandon their preconceived ideas and frames and aim for a conceptual and programmatic restart. Professor Balakrishnan Rajagopal, Ford International Associate Professor of Law and Development, Massachusetts Institute of Technology This superb collection of essays explores the challenges, possibilities, and limits faced by scholars and practitioners seeking to imagine forms of law that can respond to social transformation. Drawing together cutting-edge work across the three dynamic fields of law and development, transitional justice, and international human rights law, this volume powerfully demonstrates that in light of the changes demanded of legal research, education, and practice in a globalizing world, all law is "law in transition". Anne Orford, Michael D Kirby Chair of International Law and Australian Research Council Future Fellow, University of Melbourne A terrific volume. Leading scholars of human rights, development policy, and transitional justice look back and into the future. What has worked? Where have these projects gone astray or conflicted with one another? Law will only contribute forcefully to justice, development and peaceful, sustainable change if the lessons learned here give rise to a new practical wisdom. We all hope law can do better – the essays collected here begin to show us how. David Kennedy, Manley O Hudson Professor of Law, Director, Institute for Global Law and Policy, Harvard Law School

Since the end of the Cold War, the United States has been a key driver of transitional justice. It has provided crucial political backing, as well as technical and financial assistance for trials, truth commissions, and other measures aimed at helping societies address serious human rights violations. Surprisingly, however, scholars have not analyzed closely the role of the US in transitional justice. This book offers the first systematic and cross-cutting account of US foreign policy on transitional justice. It explores the development of US foreign policy on the field from World War I to the present, and provides an in-depth examination of US involvement in measures in Cambodia, Liberia, and Colombia. Annie Bird supports her findings with nearly 200 interviews with key US and foreign government officials, staff of transitional justice measures, and country experts. By "opening the black box" of US foreign policy, the book shows how the diverse and evolving interests of presidential administrations, Congress, the State Department, and other agencies play a major role in shaping US involvement in transitional justice. The book argues that, despite multiple influences, US foreign policy on transitional justice is characterized by a distinctive approach that is symbolic, retributive, and strategic. As the book concludes, this approach has influenced the field as a whole, including the establishment, design, and implementation of transitional justice measures.

This book considers the efficacy of transitional justice mechanisms in response to corporate human rights abuses. Corporations and other business enterprises often operate in countries affected by conflict or repressive regimes. As such, they may become involved in human rights violations and crimes under international law ‒ either as the main perpetrators or as accomplices by aiding and abetting government actors. Transitional justice mechanisms, such as trials, truth commissions, and reparations, have usually focused on abuses by state authorities or by non-state actors directly connected to the state, such as paramilitary groups. Innovative transitional justice mechanisms have, however, now started to address corporate accountability for human rights abuses and crimes under international law and have attempted to provide redress for victims. This book analyzes this development, assessing how transitional justice can provide remedies for corporate human rights abuses and crimes under international law. Canvassing a broad range of literature relating to international criminal law mechanisms, regional human rights systems, domestic courts, truth and reconciliation commissions, and land restitution programmes, this book evaluates the limitations and potential of each mechanism. Acknowledging the limited extent to which transitional justice has been able to effectively tackle the role of corporations in human rights violations and international crimes, this book nevertheless points the way towards greater engagement with corporate accountability as part of transitional justice. A valuable contribution to the literature on transitional justice and on business and human rights, this book will appeal to scholars, researchers and PhD students in these areas, as well as lawyers and other practitioners working on corporate accountability and transitional justice.

This short and accessible book is the first to focus exclusively on the inter-relation between transitional justice and rule of law reconstruction in post-conflict and post-authoritarian states. In so doing it provides a provocative reassessment of the various tangled relationships between the two fields, exploring the blind-spots, contradictions and opportunities for mutually-beneficial synergies in practice and scholarship between them. Though it is commonly assumed that transitional justice for past human rights abuses is inherently conducive to restoring the rule of law, differences in how both fields conceptualise the rule of law, the scope of transition and obligations to citizens have resulted in divergent approaches to transitional criminal trial, international criminal law, restorative justice and traditional justice mechanisms. Adopting a critical comparative approach that assesses the experiences of post-authoritarian and post-conflict polities in Latin America, Asia, Europe and Africa undergoing transitional justice and justice sector reform simultaneously, it argues that the potential benefits of transitional justice are exaggerated and urges policy-makers to rebalance the compromises inherent in transitional justice mechanisms against the foundational demands of rule of law reconstruction. This book will be of interest to scholars in the fields of transitional justice, rule of law, legal pluralism and peace-building concerned by the failure of transitional justice to leave a positive legacy to the justice system of the states where it operates. ‘This is a bold and nuanced scrutiny of the international system’s approach to transitional justice and the much vaunted rule of law project. Dr McAulifee should be congratulated for this well-researched book which should be a must read for not only scholars and researchers in transitional justice and peace and conflict studies, but also policy-makers in the international system.’ Dr. Hakeem O. Yusuf, Senior Lecturer, University of Strathclyde and author of Transitional Justice, Judicial Accountability and the Rule of Law.

In Assessing the Impact of Transitional Justice, fourteen leading researchers study seventy countries that have suffered from autocratic rule, genocide, and protracted internal conflict.