From Transitional to Transformative Justice

Transitional justice has become the principle lens used by countries emerging from conflict and authoritarian rule to address the legacies of violence and serious human rights abuses. However, as transitional justice practice becomes more institutionalized with support from NGOs and funding from Western donors, questions have been raised about the long-term effectiveness of transitional justice mechanisms. Core elements of the paradigm have been subjected to sustained critique, yet there is much less commentary that goes beyond critique to set out, in a comprehensive fashion, what an alternative approach might look like. This volume discusses one such alternative, transformative justice, and positions this quest in the wider context of ongoing fall-out from the 2008 global economic and political crisis, as well as the failure of social justice advocates to respond with imagination and ambition. Drawing on diverse perspectives, contributors illustrate the wide-ranging purchase of transformative justice at both conceptual and empirical levels.

Paul Gready is Professor of Applied Human Rights and Director of the Centre for Applied Human Rights at the University of York, and co-editor of the Journal of Human Rights Practice. His research interests include human rights practice, transitional justice, human rights and development, culture and human rights, and human rights cities. He is the author of The Era of Transitional Justice: The Aftermath of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in South Africa and Beyond (2010).

Simon Robins is a Senior Research Fellow at the Centre for Applied Human Rights at the University of York. He is a humanitarian practitioner and researcher with an interest in humanitarian protection, human rights and transitional justice. He is the author of Families of the Missing: A Test for Contemporary Approaches to Transitional Justice (2013).