Transitional Justice: Legacies and Futures

This volume explores the futures of transitional justice by presenting its multiple pasts and presents across nearly half a century. It canvasses the legacies of achievements and failures, of high hopes and expectations, and equally of disappointment and disillusion across a range of institutions, including the International Criminal Court, global regions, and local settings. The authors critically assess a range of different transitional justice mechanisms including prosecutions, reparations, truth-seeking, and institutional reform, as well as individual and public apologies for grave breaches of human rights. Their focus on local conditions foregrounds actors and networks, politics, and the political in transitional justice processes. The book presents evidence, critical facts and analyses through a multidisciplinary lens, featuring criminologists, international criminal law scholars, political scientists, sociologists, social psychologists, and anthropologists. It combines theoretical and empirical contributions to achieve fresh perspectives on transitional justice. The first part interrogates transitional justice's impact. The second examines how transitional justice mechanisms are embedded within social and political structures. The third explores voice and participation in transitional justice discourses and practices, identifying key lessons for the future. By integrating diverse disciplinary perspectives with both theoretical frameworks and empirical evidence, this comprehensive volume offers valuable insights into how societies address past traumas and (re)gain a future. The book serves as an essential resource for researchers, practitioners, and students seeking to explore innovative research avenues in transitional justice and understand the complex dynamics of post-conflict and post-authoritarian justice processes.

Chrisje Brants is Professor Emeritus of Law at Northumbria University, Newcastle, UK and Professor Emeritus of Criminal Law and Procedure at Utrecht University, the Netherlands. She is a member of the Association for International Criminal Justice and a Fellow of the European Law Institute

Susanne Karstedt is Professor in the School of Criminology and Criminal Justice at Griffith University, Australia, and Visiting Professor in the Faculty of Law of Hamburg University, Germany. She is a Fellow of the Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia.

Nandor Knust is Associate Professor at the Arctic University of Norway with a focus on environmental and international crimes, and presently has an appointment as Professor of Law and Society at Fulda University of Applied Sciences. He leads ECO-CRIM-NET, a network dedicated to investigating environmental crimes.