What We’ve Learned: Transitional Justice
[Summary]
Key Publications and Resources
Victims’ Inclusion and Transitional Justice
This report reviews efforts to include victims in transitional justice programmes, and the difficulties of managing the politics of inclusion in the transitional justice setting. It draws on empirical data from peace agreements and fieldwork in Burundi to scrutinize how inclusion is provided for in peace agreements on paper, and in post-agreement practice. The report argues that ‘victimhood’ and ‘inclusion’ are concepts that lack conceptual clarity. In practice, inclusion efforts are often pursued without consideration for the political and socio-cultural dynamics that emerge with any attempt to design an inclusive transitional justice process. Intervening to ensure inclusivity involves entering webs of power dynamics between individuals who have fluid political and social identities.
Amnesties and Inclusive Political Settlements
This research report explores when and how amnesties are used during conflict and transitions towards peace. In particular, it examines how the context in which amnesties are adopted can shape decisions on whether to limit the material or personal scope of amnesties or to attach conditions to the grant of amnesty; or on their range of legal effects. The report argues that these aspects of amnesty design can have significant implications for the extent to which amnesty can contribute to inclusive political settlements or conversely to excluding some individuals or groups from the post-conflict political contract. The report draws on the new Amnesties, Conflict, and Peace Agreement (ACPA) dataset to conduct a large-scale comparative analysis of trends in state practice on conflict and peace-related amnesties. The findings of this report contribute significantly to the fledgling literature on the role of amnesties in resolving armed conflicts by documenting and analysing the specific forms and functions of amnesties enacted during conflict and peace and exploring how they are tied to the negotiation and implementation of peace processes.
This paper was developed as a follow-up to the Fifth Edinburgh Dialogue on Post-Conflict Constitution Building held in December 2018. The paper responds to the need for stronger coordination amongst peacebuilding, development and justice responses in fragile situations with a focus on the interactions between two particular processes: transitional justice and constitution-building. Examining the interactions between transitional justice and constitution-building is worthwhile because of the frequency with which the two processes occur in overlapping settings and also because of the substantive overlap in the principles that shape the processes. Anticipating and intentionally designing for the coordinated implementation of the two processes could allow both transitional justice and constitution-building to better meet their proclaimed aims, including reconciliation, institutional reform and, arguably, sustainable peace.