Transitional Justice

One of the effects of the third wave of democratization that took place in the last quarter of the 20th century has been to confront newly democratizing countries with the need to come to terms with their “evil past”—the human rights violations committed under authoritarian rule. Transitional justice, one of the fastest growing areas within the study of democratization, deals with the manner in which the claims arising from such wrongdoings, often undertaken by the state and its agents, should be handled fairly and equitably.

The study of transitional justice is by no means confined to lawyers or to the discipline of the law. It is an eminently interdisciplinary field in which law, political science, history, sociology, anthropology, theology, and other disciplines converge. A number of institutes in several continents have been established in the first decade of the 21st century to study the many dimensions of transitional justice, to analyze the different policy tools used to achieve its objectives, and to disseminate best practices in the field. The handling of transitional justice issues and their consequences affects the dynamics of the political transition and the subsequent democratic consolidation.

Much like the latter two processes, transitional justice itself is also marked by contingency and paradox. Much depends on the historical context and the legacies of any given political trajectory. Transitions are, by definition, highly fluid, and both political action and the uses of the law find themselves under a different set of rules from those obtaining in periods of stability and calm. To identify the transformative opportunities presented by the conjuncture, which will allow change to proceed toward the new order, becomes an essential task both for political leaders and for those responsible for the transitional justice tools.