Abstract
Transitional justice has recently become among the most recommended means of building peace in a country having experienced a civil war or violent state repression. However, diverse may be its components, it provides a new definition of justice: the rehabilitation of victims, partly through reparations, is generally favored upon judgment of the perpetrators. Transitional justice implies a premise of exceptionality: for its promoters it is not a standard form of justice. We demonstrate that transitional justice is the product of a specific composite international milieu rather than the consequence of a process, be it moral one or political. More than a collection of practices or a (not entirely stable) base of knowledge, transitional justice looks like a space of professional and activist activity for various actors, from both the north and south.
Sandrine Lefrance is Chargée de recherche CNRS, Institut des Sciences sociales du Politique (ISP), Université de Paris Ouest-Nanterre La Défense. Frédéric Vairel is Assistant Professor of Political Studies, University of Ottawa.
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Notes
- 1.
Like the manual of the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance, International IDEA, 2004 (to which several academics/experts collaborated).
- 2.
See, for example, UN 2006.
- 3.
The term was applied to transitology.
- 4.
In their ambition to build reconciliation, these systems exposed themselves to the impossibility of reaching the “essentially secondary states” described in Elster 1983.
- 5.
Review of the result that is very rarely endorsed in an attempt to measure the said results: for lack of knowing well that which must be measured (the “reconciliation,” the “truth,” its diffusion, the democratization?), for lack of knowing how to measure them, and fault of a sufficient distance. The attempts at measurement are not exempt from bias, for example, in the definition of the objective of commissions and its declination in variables. See, for example, Gibson 2004.
- 6.
- 7.
Using a broad definition, experts list nearly thirty experiences in the world: Bolivia in 1982; Argentina, 1984; Zimbabwe, 1985; Philippines, 1986; Chad, 1990; Chili, 1990; Nepal, 1991; El Salvador, 1992; Germany, 1992; Haiti, 1994; Malawi, 1994; Guatemala, 1994; Sri Lanka, 1994; Uganda, 1994; South Africa, 1995; Equateur, 1996; Nigeria, 1999; Peru, 2000; Sierra Leone, 2000; South Korea, 2000; Uruguay, 2000; East Timor, 2001; Panama, 2001; Ghana, 2002; Serbia-Montenegro, 2002; Liberia, 2003; Morocco, 2004; Greensboro, NC (USA), 2004.
- 8.
International Center for Transitional Justice, “Vision and mission,” www.ictj.org.
- 9.
For example, see Bickford 2004.
- 10.
Ibid.
- 11.
Ibid., pp. 1045–1047.
- 12.
Subtitled Commission Marocaine pour la Vérité et la Réconciliation. See Vairel 2008.
- 13.
“Criminal courts, by themselves, may not be suited to reveal the broadest spectrum of crimes that took place during a period of repression, in part because they may convict only on proof beyond a reasonable doubt.” Report of the International Commission of Inquiry on Darfur to the United Nations Secretary-General, pursuant to Security Council Resolution 1564 of 18 September 2004, 25 January 2005, par. 617, quoted in Amnesty International 2007, p. 8.
- 14.
“Les séances d’auditions publiques: document de référence,” www.ier.ma, on 23/12/2004.
- 15.
Du Toit 2003, p. 107.
- 16.
“Vision and mission”, www.ictj.org. The FIDH indicates: “if we pose ourselves the question of who benefits from such a commission, the first answer that comes to mind is ‘the victims.’” FIDH 2004, p. 8. Available at http://www.fidh.org/IMG/pdf/Ma396f.pdf.
- 17.
Wilson 2001, pp. 33–61
- 18.
Tutu 1998.
- 19.
ICTJ 2004, p. 1. http://ictj.org/sites/default/files/ICTJ_Annual_Report_2002-2003.pdf. Accessed 16 May 2007.
- 20.
Ross 2003.
- 21.
The declaration of Hanny Megally, director of the Middle East and North Africa Program at the International Center for Transitional Justice, repeats this: “The impact of these hearings, televised live across Morocco, will be enormous, not only in the country but throughout the region,” ICTJ press release, 20 December 2004.
- 22.
Interview with a CCDH administrator, Rabat, March 2006.
- 23.
- 24.
- 25.
Dauvin and Siméant 2003.
- 26.
The conference organized by the journal Mouvements is a good example of this encounter: the members of the ICTJ defended the pragmatic uses of amnesty that were not necessarily compatible with the strict application of the Rule of law generally maintained by European human rights activists. See Brisset-Foucault 2008.
- 27.
Participant observation, June 2007, Bogotá.
- 28.
Lefranc 2009.
- 29.
Participant observation, Brussels, March 2006. Most of the participants in the training session observed came with the admitted objective of being recruited by the organization doing the training.
- 30.
“The ICTJ collaborates closely with human rights organizations, universities, the United Nations, and others, believing that joint projects strengthen the field of transitional justice as a whole.” ICTJ 2004, p. 17.
- 31.
For example, David Weissbrodt and Soledad García Muñoz are professors of law and former members of the international executive board of Amnesty International.
- 32.
A new academic discipline has sprung up to study the commissions, with courses on the topic now offered at New York University, Harvard, Michigan, and Columbia law schools,” Tepperman 2002, p. 129. A list of these curricula established in 2005 was available in August 2007 at: http://listserv.aaas.org/pipermail/tjnetwork/Week-of-Mon-20051212/000463.html.
- 33.
The different organizations compete against one another in terms of compensation and benefits (health insurance, retirement plans, continuing education, etc.).
- 34.
Widney Brown is currently the Senior Director of International Law and Policy for the International Secretariat of Amnesty International. An alumna of NYU Law, she previously taught at Yale (2000–2005) and headed the Women’s Rights program at Human Rights Watch.
- 35.
Director of the New York office of the Robert F. Kenney Center for Justice and Human Rights and one of the founding staff members of the International Center for Transitional Justice, Louis Bickford teaches at New York University and has taught at the University of Chili Law School, University of Wisconsin at Madison, City University of New York’s Brooklyn College, New School for Social Research, and the University of Hiroshima. He holds a Ph.D. in political science from McGill University.
- 36.
Hayner 2001.
- 37.
The funding of its creation comes from among the oldest, most active, and best endowed foundations in American philanthropy: Ford Foundation, John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, Carnegie Corporation of New York, Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research, and the Andrus Family Fund.
- 38.
- 39.
Ibid.
- 40.
UN 2006.
- 41.
- 42.
Roht-Arriaza 1995, pp. 160–170.
- 43.
- 44.
The latter is used widely in the Anglo-Saxon countries for juvenile delinquency. On the mobilization of/for “restorative justice,” see Lefranc 2006.
- 45.
Garapon 2002, pp. 282–283.
- 46.
Interview given 21 October 2005 by Joyce Johnson (co-leader of the Beloved Community Center) to the Leadership for a Changing World (Ford Foundation), http://www.leadershipforchange.org/talks/archive.php3?ForumID=34, accessed 15 June 2008.
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Lefranc, S., Vairel, F. (2014). The Emergence of Transitional Justice as a Professional International Practice. In: Israël, L., Mouralis, G. (eds) Dealing with Wars and Dictatorships. T.M.C. Asser Press, The Hague. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-90-6704-930-6_14
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