Negotiating Transitional Justice: Firsthand Lessons from Colombia and Beyond

The recent Colombian peace negotiations took the art and science of negotiating transitional justice to unprecedented levels of complexity. For decades, the Colombian government fought a bitter insurgency war against FARC guerrilla forces. After protracted negotiations, the two parties reached a peace deal that took account of the rights of victims. As first-hand participants in the talks, and principal advisers to the Colombia government, Mark Freeman and Iván Orozco offer a unique account of the mechanics through which accountability issues were addressed. Drawing from this case study and other global experiences, Freeman and Orozco offer a comprehensive theoretical and practical conception of what makes the 'devil's dilemma' of negotiating peace with justice implausible but feasible.

Mark Freeman is the founder and executive director of the Institute for Integrated Transitions (IFIT). He is the author of Necessary Evils: Amnesties and the Search for Justice (Cambridge, 2010) and Truth Commissions and Procedural Fairness (Cambridge, 2006), which received the American Society of International Law's Certificate of Merit.

Iván Orozco is Associate Professor in the Department of Political Science at the Universidad de los Andes, Colombia. He is the author of several books - all published in Spanish - including Justica Transicional en tiempos del deber de memoria (2009), Sobre los Límites de la Conciencia Humanitaria (2005) and Combatientes, Rebeldes y Terroristas (1992).