Transitional Justice as Global Project: critical reflections

Abstract

This article critically reflects on the ways in which the global project of transitional justice is channelled or streamlined in its scope of application. Using the categories of when, to whom and for what transitional justice applies, it argues that transitional justice is typically constructed to focus on specific sets of actors for specific sets of crimes. This results in a fairly narrow interpretation of violence within a somewhat artificial time frame and to the exclusion of external actors. The article engages themes of gender, power and structural violence to caution against the narrowing and depoliticisation of transitional justice.

Notes

1 M Mutua, ‘Savages, victims and saviors: the metaphor of human rights’, Harvard International Law Journal, 42, 2001, pp 201 – 242.

2 C Bell, C Campbell & F Ní Aoláin, ‘Justice discourses in transition’, Social & Legal Studies, 13 (3), 2004, p 307.

3 C Bell & C O'Rourke, ‘Does feminism need a theory of transitional justice? An introductory essay’, International Journal of Transitional Justice, 1 (1), 2007, p 35.

4 RG Teitel, ‘Theoretical and international framework: transitional justice in new era’, Fordham International Law Journal, 26 (4), 2003, p 893, see also fn 1. Teitel's succinct definition of transitional justice draws from her seminal book, Transitional Justice, New York: Oxford University Press, 2000.

5 See Teitel, Transitional Justice.

6 N Roht-Arriaza, ‘The new landscape of transitional justice’, in N Roht-Arriaza & J Mariezcurrena (eds), Transitional Justice in the Twenty-First Century, New York: Cambridge University Press, 2006, p 2.

7 Ibid.

8 R Mani, Beyond Retribution: Seeking Justice in the Shadows of War, Malden, MA: Polity, 2002, p 17.

9 R Lui, ‘Beyond retribution: seeking justice in the shadows of war [book review]’, Australian Journal of Political Science, 38 (3), 2003, pp 589 – 590.

10 R Mani, ‘Rebuilding an inclusive political community after war’, Security Dialogue, 36 (4), 2005, p 524.

11 United Nations Secretary-General, Report on the Rule of Law and Transitional Justice in Conflict and Post-Conflict Societies (2004), para 8.

12 See The International Centre for Transitional Justice's website, ‘Where We Work’, at http://www.ictj.org/en/where/overview/; and ‘Transitional Justice Approaches’, at http://www.ictj.org/en/tj/, both accessed 20 July 2007.

13 LE Fletcher & HM Weinstein, ‘Violence and social repair: rethinking the contribution of justice to reconciliation’, Human Rights Quarterly, 24 (3), 2002, p 584.

14 Mani, Beyond Retribution, p 151.

15 See L Vinjamuri & J Snyder, ‘Advocacy and scholarship in the study of international war crimes tribunals and transitional justice’, Annual Review of Political Science, 7, 2004, p 347.

16 B Oomen, ‘Donor-driven justice and its discontents: the case of Rwanda’, Development and Change, 36 (5), 2005, p 890.

17 Ibid, p 893.

18 KM Franke, ‘Gendered subjects of transitional justice’, Columbia Journal of Gender and Law, 15, 2006, pp 813, 820.

19 See RA Wilson, The Politics of Truth and Reconciliation in South Africa: Legitimizing the Post-Apartheid State, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001.

20 For example, E Stover, H Megally & H Mufti, ‘Bremer's “Gordian Knot”: transitional justice and the US occupation of Iraq’, in Roht-Arriaza & Mariezcurrena, Transitional Justice in the Twenty-First Century, pp 229 – 254, are completely agnostic on these points.

21 RI Rotberg, ‘Truth commissions and the provision of truth, justice, and reconciliation’, in RI Rotberg & D Thompson (eds), Truth V Justice, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2000, p 4.

22 R Nagy, ‘The ambiguities of reconciliation and responsibility in South Africa’, Political Studies, 52, 2004, pp 709 – 727; K Lalloo, ‘Citizenship and place: spatial definitions of oppression and agency in South Africa’, Africa Today, 45 (3 – 4), 1998, pp 439 – 460; and Nahla Valji, Creating the Nation: The Rise of Violent Xenophobia in the New South Africa, 2003, at http://www.csvr.org.za/papers/papnv1.htm, accessed April 2004.

23 C Duggan & AM Abusharaf, ‘Reparation of sexual violence in democratic transitions: the search for gender justice’, in P de Greiff (ed), The Handbook of Reparations, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006, p 627. F Ní Aoláin, ‘Political violence and gender during times of transition’, Columbia Journal of Gender and Law, 15, 2006, pp 829, 848, notes that there may be an increase in reporting rather than in incidents.

24 C Chinkin & H Charlesworth, ‘Building women into peace: the international legal framework’, Third World Quarterly, 27 (5), 2006, p 946. See also Ní Aoláin, ‘Political violence and gender during times of transition’.

25 For example, see Democratic Principles Working Group, ‘Iraqi opposition report on the transition to democracy’, Journal of Democracy, 14 (3), 2003, pp 14 – 29; USIPeace Briefing, Establishing Justice and the Rule of Law in Iraq: A Blueprint for Action, 2003, at http://www.usip.org/pubs/usipeace_briefings/2003/0801_ESIraq_law.html; and Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission, A Call for Justice, 2005, at http://www.aihrc.org.af/Rep_29_Eng/rep29_1_05call4justice.pdf.

26 See T Allen, Trial Justice, London: Zed Books, 2006. A similar fear was voiced in 1995 when the icty indicted Milosevic prior to the conclusion of a diplomatic solution.

27 A Orford, ‘Commissioning the truth’, Columbia Journal of Gender and Law, 15, 2006, p 863.

28 Ibid, p 854.

29 See P Fitzpatrick & E Darian-Smith, ‘Laws of the postcolonial: an insistent introduction’, in E Darian-Smith & P Fitzpatrick (eds), Laws of the Postcolonial, Ann Arbour, MI: University of Michigan Press, 2002, pp 1 – 15; and Mutua, ‘Savages, victims and saviors’.

30 D Chandler, Empire in Denial: The Politics of State-building, London: Pluto, 2006, p 172.

31 A Orford, Reading Humanitarian Intervention, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003; and Chandler, Empire in Denial.

32 Orford, Reading Humanitarian Intervention, p 139.

33 S Katzenstein, ‘Hybrid tribunals: searching for justice in East Timor’, Harvard Human Rights Journal, 16, 2003, p 256.

34 CL Sriram & A Ross, ‘Geographies of crimes and justice: contemporary transitional justice and the creation of “zones of impunity”’, International Journal of Transitional Justice, 1 (1), 2007, pp 45 – 65.

35 C Wilke, ‘A particular universality: universal jurisdiction for crimes against humanity in domestic courts’, Constellations, 12 (1), 2005, p 84.

36 F Webber, ‘The Pinochet case: the struggle for the realization of human rights’, Journal of Law and Society, 26 (4), 1999, pp 523 – 537.

37 Sriram & Ross, ‘Geographies of crimes and justice’, p 57.

38 Ibid, p 59.

39 See CL Sriram, Globalizing Justice for Mass Atrocities: A Revolution in Accountability, London: Routledge, 2005; and Human Rights Watch, ‘East Timor: UN Security Council must ensure justice’, Human Rights News, 29 June 2005, at http://hrw.org/english/docs/2005/06/28/eastti11231.htm, accessed 30 July 2007.

40 Human Rights Watch, Justice Denied for East Timor, 2004, at http://www.hrw.org/backgrounder/asia/timor/etimor1202bg.htm.

41 See ibid.

42 J Nevins, ‘Restitution over coffee: truth, reconciliation and environmental justice in East Timor’, Political Geography, 22, 2003, p 684.

43 Sriram, Globalizing Justice for Mass Atrocities, p 88.

44 Human Rights Watch, 2007 World Report: East Timor, at http://hrw.org/englishwr2k7/docs/2007/01/11/eastti14856.htm, accessed 25 July 2007.

45 UN Commission of Experts, Summary of the Report to the Secretary-General of the Commission of Experts to Review the Prosecution of Serious Violations of Human Rights in Timor-Leste (Then East Timor) in 1999, S/2005/458, paras 17, 29.

46 See Nevins, ‘Restitution over coffee’, pp 682, 690 – 693.

47 Orford, ‘Commissioning the truth’, p 862.

48 P Hayner, Unspeakable Truths: Confronting State Terror and Atrocity, New York: Routledge, 2000, pp 75 – 76. Some earlier exceptions include the truth commissions in Chad, Chile, El Salvador and Guatemala.

49 See M Mamdani, ‘Reconciliation without justice’, South African Review of Books, 1996, 46, pp 3 – 5.

50 Wilson, The Politics of Truth and Reconciliation in South Africa; and R Nagy, ‘Violence, amnesty and transitional law: “private” acts and “public” truth in South Africa’, African Journal of Legal Studies, 1 (1), 2004, pp 1 – 22.

51 See R Nagy, ‘Postapartheid justice: can cosmopolitanism and nation-building be reconciled?’, Law and Society Review, 40 (3), 2006, pp 623 – 652; and Nagy, ‘The ambiguities of reconciliation and responsibility in South Africa’.

52 L Arbour, ‘Economic and social justice for societies in transition’, speech at New York University of Law School, 2006, p 2, at http://www.chrgj.org/docs/Arbour_25_October_2006.pdf, accessed 12 October 2007.

53 Ibid, p 3.

54 East Timor cavr, Chega! Final Report of the Commission for Reception, Truth and Reconciliation in East Timor, 2005, ch 6.12, p 5, at http://www.ictj.org/en/news/features/846.html. cavr is the first truth commission to use a retrospective mortality survey.

55 Ibid, ch 7.9, p 3ff.

56 Human Rights Watch, 2007 World Report: East Timor.

57 See E Rehn & E Johnson Sirleaf, Women, War and Peace: The Independent Experts' Assessment on the Impact of Armed Conflict on Women and Women's Role in Peace-building, New York: undp, 2002.

58 RJ Jolly, ‘Desiring good(s) in the face of marginalized subjects: South Africa's truth and reconciliation commission in a global context’, South Atlantic Quarterly, 100 (3), 2002, p 623.

59 Discussion of women as combatants, perpetrators or collaborators is beyond my scope.

60 C Levine, ‘Gender and transitional justice: a case study of East Timor’, Canadian Consortium for Human Security, 2004, pp 29 – 30, at http://www.humansecurity.info/sites/cchs/files/pdfs/Fellow%20Papers/levine_corey_paper.pdf.

61 Franke, ‘Gendered subjects of transitional justice’, p 822.

62 ASJ Park, ‘“Other inhumane acts”: forced marriage, girl soldiers and the special court for Sierra Leone’, Social & Legal Studies, 15 (3), 2006, p 316.

63 Sierra Leone trc, Witness to Truth: Report of the Sierra Leone Truth and Reconciliation Commission, vol 2, ch 3, Accra: Graphic Packaging, 2004, paras 107 – 111, 316 – 376, at http://www.trcsierraleone.org/drwebsite/publish/index.shtml.

64 L Graybill, ‘Debt relief: a panacea for Sierra Leone?’, csis Africa Policy Forum, 9 February 2007.