Transitional justice: justice and peace in situations of transition (original) (raw)
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This advisory report discusses the concept of transitional justice, defined by former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan as processes and mechanisms a society employs to address a legacy of past abuses. The paper examines the implications of the term 'transitional', highlight the complex nature of justice and its associated goals, including accountability, reconciliation, and truth-seeking. It also emphasizes that transitional justice mechanisms may evolve during conflicts, and continuous reflection on their effectiveness is essential for achieving lasting peace.
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Defining Transitional Justice: Scholarly Debate and Un Precision
Lex portus, 2017
The article trace he origins and development of the notion of transitional justice in scholarly publications and UN practice. It reveals the historical preconditions of its development. It is being demonstrated that the notion of transitional justice was originally associated with political transit, however later it has been used as a name for the series of measures designed to overcome the consequences of armed conflicts and other situations of mass violence. The article demonstrates the dual nature of transitional justice.
Issues, challenges and proposals on Transitional Justice mechanisms
Transitional Justice has been in the last few years a way to handle with past wrongdoings. Its mechanisms, oriented by the dichotomy of retributive and restorative justice, have given different contributes to societies where they have been applied. Trials (as a retributive form) and truth commissions, amnesties and reparations (as a restorative form) face a lot of challenges and criticism, both theoretical and practical To make transitional justice more realistic, it's important to learn with all the experiences and improve the work on education, financing, planning and assessment of the processes, contribute to social and political change, and spread the word about what is being done and combine, whenever its possible different mechanisms to achieve better results.
The term transitional justice has become synonymous with contemporary post-conflict peace building processes. The concept evolved from modest theoretical assumptions into distinctive models. The formal origins of the transitional justice concept can be traced to the 1990s, following the demise of the Eastern Communist bloc when nations experienced transition from autocratic to democratic rule. The roots of the concept can however be traced back to major peace settlements such as the Congress of Vienna (1815), the Paris Peace Settlement (1918) and the Nuremberg and Tokyo Trials after 1945. The major challenge it faced was acceptability and legitimacy; it was largely viewed as an instrument devised invariably to punish either the vanquished or the perceived perpetrators. This criticism may have informed the concept's evolution from being a vindictive 'victor's justice' seeker into defined frameworks such as criminal tribunals, commissions and courts. This paradigm shift was evidenced by the United Nations' recognition of the framework and its deployment in Yugoslavia (1993), Rwanda (1994) and Sierra Leone (2002). Arguably, success story of these case studies' motivated the formation of the International Criminal Court in 2003. The paper will underscore the importance of contexts in the choice of transitional options.
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