JournalTOCs

International Journal of Transitional Justice
Journal Prestige (SJR): 0.724

Citation Impact (citeScore): 2
Number of Followers: 14

Hybrid journal (It can contain Open Access articles)
ISSN (Print) 1752-7716 - ISSN (Online) 1752-7724
Published by Oxford University Press

[413 journals]

Racism and Transitional Justice
- Authors: van der Merwe H; Brinton Lykes M.
  Pages: 415 - 422
  Abstract: We write this Editorial at a time when millions around the globe have been, and continue to demonstrate, under the rallying cry of Black Lives Matter. Despite the historic critique of the excesses of anti-black police violence in the US11 (and similar racist assaults in other supposedly liberal democracies22) these abuses were viewed as exceptions to a functional democratic process and legitimate social order. They have however become so blatant, frequent and racially overt that instead of being conceived of as unfortunate exceptional incidents, they are increasingly acknowledged by those in power as the legacy of a systemic racist system intentionally designed during slavery to maintain an oppressive social order.33 It is also a moment of crisis for US democracy as the escalating actions of the state in Portland, Oregon and beyond appear more reflective of despotic rulers that provoke fierce calls for justice than the liberal democratic ideals that are evoked by many transitional justice initiatives.
  PubDate: Wed, 20 Jan 2021 00:00:00 GMT
  DOI: 10.1093/ijtj/ijab001
  Issue No: Vol. 14, No. 3 (2021)
Judicializing economic violence as means of dismantling the structural
causes of atrocity in the Democratic Republic of Congo
- Authors: Sehmi A.
  Pages: 423 - 442
  Abstract: AbstractThe International Criminal Court (ICC) convicted three militia commanders – Thomas Lubanga Dyilo, Germain Katanga and Bosco Ntaganda – for war crimes and crimes against humanity committed in Ituri, in the Democratic Republic of Congo. However, none of these convictions have resulted in a cessation of violence in the region, as recent events have illustrated. Although the ICC is one initiative aimed at securing peace in Ituri, the extent of the ICC’s engagement with this particular context presents a good opportunity to reflect on its limited contribution and to illustrate the structural violence problems that underlie most, if not all, ICC situations and cases in Africa. Furthermore, it will be argued that the ICC can redeem itself from its embeddedness within the liberal peacebuilding paradigm by judicialising the economic realities of violence, thereby combating some of the worst effects of structural violence.
  PubDate: Wed, 20 Jan 2021 00:00:00 GMT
  DOI: 10.1093/ijtj/ijaa021
  Issue No: Vol. 14, No. 3 (2021)
‘We Came To Realize We Are Judges’: Moral Careers of Elected Lay
Jurists in Rwanda’s Gacaca Courts
- Authors: Nyseth Brehm H; Roberts L, Uggen C, et al.
  Pages: 443 - 463
  Abstract: AbstractIn the wake of the 1994 genocide, Rwanda’s government created the Gacaca courts to hold suspected perpetrators accountable. Although much has been written about these courts, researchers know comparatively less about the 250,000 individuals who served as Gacaca court judges (inyangamugayo). We draw upon 135 interviews to explore how the inyangamugayo entered and adapted to their new public roles as moral arbiters, how these judges understood Gacaca’s missions, and how their social identities evolved over the course of multiple status transitions. Building on Erving Goffman’s sequential approach to moral careers, we trace the process of becoming a judge. In doing so, we highlight the two overarching missions that surfaced during the interviews – justice and reconciliation – and how the judges continued to view themselves as inyangamugayo even after the courts closed.
  PubDate: Sat, 24 Oct 2020 00:00:00 GMT
  DOI: 10.1093/ijtj/ijaa018
  Issue No: Vol. 14, No. 3 (2020)
The Borderlands between Punitive and Non-punitive Transitional Justice:
Distinct Elites and Diverging Patterns of Import/export
- Authors: Christensen M.
  Pages: 464 - 482
  Abstract: AbstractTransitional justice consists of different ideals and practices that both coexist and conflict. This article investigates the socio-professional borderlands between punitive and non-punitive transitional justice initiatives by analyzing elites working in either international criminal courts, or truth and reconciliation commissions. While they were marginally linked, the professional practices of these elites were structured by their distinct positions in the larger market of transitional justice. Professionals of international criminal law were tied to international institutions from where they were often on the exporting side of particular internationalized, punitive norms and practices. In contrast, professionals involved with truth and reconciliation were closely connected to states that structured their import/export of internationalized, non-punitive initiatives. Punitive and non-punitive transitional justice was characterized not only by competing ideals and practices, but was embedded in distinct elites whose proximity to or distance from the state structured the circulation of transitional justice ideas and practices.
  PubDate: Sat, 24 Oct 2020 00:00:00 GMT
  DOI: 10.1093/ijtj/ijaa024
  Issue No: Vol. 14, No. 3 (2020)
Transitional Justice and Transitional Journalism: Case-Study on Kosovo
- Authors: Sweeney J; Andresen K, Hoxha A.
  Pages: 483 - 503
  Abstract: AbstractThis article documents the findings of an empirical project combining socio-legal and media studies, which examined journalists’ perceptions of their role in relation to transitional justice in Kosovo. Based upon the qualitative analysis of 30 semi-structured interviews with professional journalists in Kosovo during the summer of 2018, the article shows that key issues in the study of transitional justice appear in respect of what, building on notions of ‘peace journalism’, can be termed ‘transitional journalism’. Issues include the extent to which ‘transitional journalism’ is, or should be, a distinct ‘field’ at all; as well as debates about the relative priority to give to accountability, reconciliation, historical accounting, or victims’ rights within the practice of ‘transitional journalism’ at any given time. Identifying and engaging with these issues will allow greater agency in, and ownership of, decisions taken about ‘transitional journalism’.
  PubDate: Fri, 02 Oct 2020 00:00:00 GMT
  DOI: 10.1093/ijtj/ijaa017
  Issue No: Vol. 14, No. 3 (2020)
The Missing Picture: Accounting for Sexual and Gender-Based Violence
during Cambodia’s ‘Other’ Conflict Periods
- Authors: Kochanski A.
  Pages: 504 - 523
  Abstract: AbstractLocal transitional justice (TJ) processes have performed an invaluable function in raising awareness about conflict-related sexual and gender-based violence. While locally-rooted praxis has been increasingly suggested as an alternative to the top-down approach to TJ, which is prone to interference, this article argues that well-intentioned local initiatives can also be distorted through discursive framing tactics that set boundaries on discussions of conflict-related events and obfuscate who can be deemed responsible. In Cambodia, this has meant a partial account of sexual and gender-based violence—one that is limited to the three-year, eight-month and 20-day rule of the Khmer Rouge, and that marginalizes survivor experiences from other episodes of the 30-year-long internal conflict. This article explores and traces the unintended consequences of this discursive frame on three local TJ efforts to address the legacy of conflict-related sexual and gender-based violence: forum theatre, women’s hearings and testimonial therapy.
  PubDate: Fri, 02 Oct 2020 00:00:00 GMT
  DOI: 10.1093/ijtj/ijaa020
  Issue No: Vol. 14, No. 3 (2020)
The Politics of Apology and the Prospects for ‘Post-conflict’
Reconciliation: The Case of the Provisional Irish Republican Movement
- Authors: Hopkins S.
  Pages: 524 - 543
  Abstract: AbstractThis article analyses the Irish Provisional Republican movement and the evolution of its approach to the politics of apology. The first section analyses recent scholarship regarding ‘political apologies’, and provides a challenge to the existing literature, which concentrates upon ‘official’ or state apologies, rather than examples involving non-state armed groups (paramilitary or ‘terrorist’ organisations). This section argues that it remains difficult to discern an adequate general model for establishing criteria for a ‘successful’ or ‘sincere’ political apology involving such groups. The second section considers a number of case studies, including the statements of the IRA in 2002, and after the Enniskillen bombing in 1987. It is argued that the Provisional movement’s apologies have not generally proven helpful to its declared aim of post-conflict reconciliation. This article argues that attempted apologies or quasi-apologies by non-state groups may not ameliorate the sense of grievance experienced by victims/survivors, and may also serve to revivify social and political ‘framing battles’ over the past.
  PubDate: Wed, 26 Aug 2020 00:00:00 GMT
  DOI: 10.1093/ijtj/ijaa014
  Issue No: Vol. 14, No. 3 (2020)
Transitional Justice and Temporal Parameters: Built-In Expiration
Dates'
- Authors: Horne C.
  Pages: 544 - 565
  Abstract: AbstractTemporal assumptions associated with personnel reforms, such as lustration and public disclosure programs, both prescribe the optimal timing for the onset of measures and proscribe a long duration for such measures. In the context of the post-communist transitions, these assumptions suggested that lustration and public disclosures should be enacted as soon as possible after a regime transition, with the legitimacy, motives, and legal appropriateness of delayed measures being questioned. In terms of duration, personnel reforms should have fixed time limits, often suggested as no more than a decade. This article critically explores the evolution of these temporal assumptions through an examination of the legal rulings, intergovernmental policies, and recommendations of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, the European Court of Human Rights, and the Venice Commission. The article illustrates the tension between the continued use of the measures by some post-communist states and international rulings signalling their expiration.
  PubDate: Wed, 26 Aug 2020 00:00:00 GMT
  DOI: 10.1093/ijtj/ijaa016
  Issue No: Vol. 14, No. 3 (2020)
Transitional Justice Standards on Reparations for Women Subjected to
Violence in the CEDAW Committee’s Evolving Legal Practice
- Authors: Rubio-Marin R; Estrada-Tanck D.
  Pages: 566 - 584
  Abstract: AbstractViolence against women continues to be one of the most pressing global concerns. Reparations for women victims of violence have been addressed by the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women Committee over the last 15 years. This article critically examines the evolving practice of the Committee on reparations, in light of the transitional justice doctrinal and normative acquis on gender-sensitive reparations. We systematize legal interpretations, identify trends and milestones, and link them to transitional justice elements. We also suggest that the transitional justice reparations framework can be, and is in fact being, applied to non-transitional contexts, independent of armed conflict and authoritarian regimes. Further, we propose recommendations for the Committee to engage in a more explicit ‘dialogue’ with these ongoing developments to the benefit of women in their everyday lives and in recognition of the structural dimension of violence against women, even in what are other so-called peaceful and stable societies.
  PubDate: Tue, 13 Oct 2020 00:00:00 GMT
  DOI: 10.1093/ijtj/ijaa019
  Issue No: Vol. 14, No. 3 (2020)
Rethinking Transitional Justice in South Sudan: Critical Perspectives on
Justice and Reconciliation
- Authors: Akech J.
  Pages: 585 - 595
  Abstract: AbstractThe horrific violations committed in South Sudan’s civil war led to the establishment of mechanisms ensuring the prosecution of serious crimes and reconciliation within communities shattered by war. Through a peace deal, three mutually supportive but independent institutions of transitional justice were formed: The Commission for Truth, Reconciliation and Healing, The Hybrid Court for South Sudan and The Compensation and Reparation Authority. This article examines the extent to which these mechanisms can achieve their respective aims, and argues that prosecutions need to be implemented in an integrated manner alongside reconciliation and healing because of the massive scale of abuses and enormous number of perpetrators. The article further contends that their collaboration with local, indigenous justice mechanisms is crucial because of the latter’s extensive experience in facilitating accountability and reconciliation within divided communities in South Sudan. The article concludes that whilst a limited amnesty is inevitable, a blanket amnesty is counterproductive to the aims of transitional justice in post-conflict South Sudan. Further, the article cautions against the use of immunity, arguing that this would deny justice to victims and could lead to a rise in revenge or private retribution, lawlessness and impunity.
  PubDate: Thu, 13 Aug 2020 00:00:00 GMT
  DOI: 10.1093/ijtj/ijaa015
  Issue No: Vol. 14, No. 3 (2020)
Towards Decolonial Justice
- Authors: Samset I.
  Pages: 596 - 607
  Abstract: Justice and Reconciliation in World Politics, LuCatherine. Cambridge University Press, August 2018, 309pp. ISBN: 9781108413053 – paperback (£24.99).
  PubDate: Thu, 13 Aug 2020 00:00:00 GMT
  DOI: 10.1093/ijtj/ijaa023
  Issue No: Vol. 14, No. 3 (2020)
Books Received
- Pages: 608 - 609
  Abstract: The following is a list of books received by the journal and published in the field between 15 April and 15 August 2020:
  PubDate: Thu, 24 Sep 2020 00:00:00 GMT
  DOI: 10.1093/ijtj/ijaa022
  Issue No: Vol. 14, No. 3 (2020)