Promoting Peace in the Middle-East Through the Field of Transitional Justice

2019 ◽  
pp. 344-371
Author(s):  
Jeremie M. Bracka
Keyword(s):  
Middle East ◽  
Restorative Justice ◽  
Transitional Justice ◽  
Historical Record ◽  
Peace Building ◽  
Potential Contribution ◽  
Post Conflict ◽  
Right Of Return ◽  
Human Rights Abuse ◽  
Justice Model

This chapter examines the role and potential contribution of transitional justice to promoting peace in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. From the experience of many post-conflict societies, it has now become prevailing wisdom that meaningful peace, requires due regard for justice and a carefully conceived process to re-establish the rule of law and accountability for human rights abuse. Nevertheless, such considerations have been all but absent in political peace efforts in the Middle East. Accordingly, this chapter highlights the unique goals of the transitional justice model, and its capacity to apply a retrospective and restorative approach to peace building. By attaching transitional justice to intractable issues like the Palestinian right of return, the refugees, and the historical record, negotiators could draw on a restorative justice model to defeat the present stalemate. It proposes an unofficial bi-national Israeli-Palestinian truth commission (IPTC) to play a pivotal role in reshaping collective memory and supporting the viability of any future political agreement.

scholarly journals Fit-for-Purpose Land Administration in Violent Conflict Settings

Land ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 139
Author(s):  
Clarissa Augustinus ◽  
Ombretta Tempra
Keyword(s):  
Transitional Justice ◽  
Democratic Republic ◽  
Democratic Republic Of Congo ◽  
Violent Conflict ◽  
Peace Building ◽  
Land Administration ◽  
Post Conflict ◽  
Conflict Settings ◽  
Displaced People ◽  
Fit For Purpose

According to the United Nations (UN) Refugee Agency, there were 79.5 million forcibly displaced people worldwide by the end of 2019. Evictions from homes and land are often linked to protracted violent conflict. Land administration (LA) can be a small part of UN peace-building programs addressing these conflicts. Through the lens of the UN and seven country cases, the problem being addressed is: what are the key features of fit-for-purpose land administration (FFP LA) in violent conflict contexts? FFP LA involves the same LA elements found in conventional LA and FFP LA, and LA in post conflict contexts, as it supports peace building and conflict resolution. However, in the contexts being examined, FFP LA also has novel features as well, such as extra-legal transitional justice mechanisms to protect people and their land rights and to address historical injustices and the politics of exclusion that are the root causes of conflict. In addition, there are land governance and power relations’ implications, as FFP LA is part of larger UN peace-building programs. This impacts the FFP LA design. The cases discussed are from Darfur/Sudan, Democratic Republic of Congo, Honduras, Iraq, Jubaland/Somalia, Peru and South Sudan.

Criminal Justice Reform in a Transitional Context: Restorative Youth Conferencing in Northern Ireland

2012 ◽  
Vol 12 (3) ◽  
pp. 549-572 ◽  
Author(s):  
David O’Mahony
Keyword(s):  
Civil Society ◽  
Criminal Justice ◽  
Northern Ireland ◽  
Restorative Justice ◽  
Transitional Justice ◽  
Justice System ◽  
Peace Building ◽  
Youth Justice ◽  
Criminal Justice Reform ◽  
Transitional Environment

This article examines the incorporation of restorative principles and practices within reforms of Northern Ireland’s youth justice system, adopted following the peace process. It considers whether restorative justice principles can be successfully incorporated into criminal justice reform as part of a process of transitional justice. The article argues that restorative justice principles, when brought within criminal justice, can contribute to the broader process of transitional justice and peace building, particularly in societies where the police and criminal justice system have been entwined in the conflict. In these contexts restorative justice within criminal justice can help civil society to take a stake in the administration and delivery of criminal justice, it can help break down hostility and animosity towards criminal justice and contribute to the development of social justice and civic agency, so enabling civil society to move forward in a transitional environment.

More than Words: Restorative Justice Concepts in Transitional Justice Settings

2012 ◽  
Vol 12 (3) ◽  
pp. 339-360 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kerry Clamp ◽  
Jonathan Doak
Keyword(s):  
Restorative Justice ◽  
Transitional Justice ◽  
Insufficient Attention ◽  
Post Conflict ◽  
Practical Operation ◽  
Wide Range

This article considers the applicability of restorative justice literature in the transitional justice arena. The authors argue that while restorative justice is applied to a wide range of conflicts, the established literature is often of limited value within a transitional context. Insufficient attention is often paid to the inherent difficulties in importing theories, concepts and practices designed for the context of ‘settled’ societies into post-conflict environments. Significantly more consideration needs to be given to the practical operation of transitional justice mechanisms, as well as their underlying normative bases, so that they might live up to the claims of many commentators that transitional justice is ‘restorative’.

scholarly journals Mirroring transitional justice. Construction and impact of European Union ICTY-conditionality

Südosteuropa ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 65 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Niké Wentholt
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
Restorative Justice ◽  
Transitional Justice ◽  
International Criminal Tribunal ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Western Balkans ◽  
Post Conflict ◽  
War Experiences ◽  
The Impact ◽  
The Eu

AbstractThe European Union (EU) developed a state-building strategy for the aspiring member states in the Western Balkans. Demanding full cooperation with the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY), the EU made transitional justice part of the accession demands. Scholars have recently criticized the EU’s limited focus on retributive justice as opposed to restorative justice. This paper goes beyond such impact-orientated analyses by asking why the EU engaged with retributive transitional justice in the first place. The EU constructed ICTY-conditionality by mirroring its own post-Second World War experiences to the envisioned post-conflict trajectory of the Western Balkans. The EU therefore expected the court to contribute to reconciliation, democratization and the rule of law. Using Serbia as a case study, this article examines the conditionality’s context, specificities and discursive claims. Finally, it relates these findings to the agenda of a promising regional initiative prioritizing restorative justice (RECOM) and sheds new light on the impact of ICTY-conditionality on transitional justice in the Western Balkans.

scholarly journals In search of legitimacy: restorative youth conferencing in Northern Ireland

Legal Studies ◽  
2011 ◽  
Vol 31 (2) ◽  
pp. 305-325 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jonathan Doak ◽  
David O'Mahony
Keyword(s):  
Criminal Justice ◽  
Northern Ireland ◽  
Restorative Justice ◽  
Peace Building ◽  
Restorative Practices ◽  
Juvenile Offending ◽  
Criminal Justice Reform ◽  
Post Conflict ◽  
Peace Agreements ◽  
Central Response

Restorative justice principles often feature prominently in peace agreements and initiatives to foster reconciliation and peace-building. As part of its own transitional process, Northern Ireland has undertaken a wide-ranging programme of criminal justice reform, whereby restorative practices have become a central response to juvenile offending. Drawing on a major evaluation of the Northern Ireland Youth Conferencing Scheme, this paper suggests that restorative conferencing holds the potential not only to promote reconciliation between victims and offenders, but it may even bolster the legitimacy deficit suffered by criminal justice institutions. Whilst is vital that such schemes continue to foster their engagement with civil society and the wider community, the broader potential of restorative processes to contribute to post-conflict peace-building is considerable, especially in relation to fostering a sense of legitimacy necessary for the operation of society and the institutions of the state.

scholarly journals 17. Criminology and transitional justice

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kieran McEvoy ◽  
Ron Dudai ◽  
Cheryl Lawther
Keyword(s):  
Social Control ◽  
Restorative Justice ◽  
Transitional Justice ◽  
Research Agenda ◽  
Critical Discussion ◽  
Post Conflict ◽  
The Social ◽  
To Come ◽  
The Relationship

This chapter explores the intersection between criminology and transitional justice. The chapter begins with a critical discussion on the utility of criminological scholarship from settled democracies to the exceptional circumstances of post-conflict or post-authoritarian societies. It then explores a range of debates related to the punishment of offenders in such contexts including the role of prosecutions, amnesties, the reintegration of former combatants, and the role of restorative justice. The chapter next considers the social and political construction of victimhood in transitional contexts including competing notions of the ‘idealized’ victim. The relationship between transitional justice and social control is then examined including the importance of countering denial, the relationship between deviance and memory and the particular contribution of efforts ‘from below’ to counter elites-level narratives on past abuses. The chapter concludes that a criminology of transitional justice provides the basis for revisiting some of the foundational questions on responding to crime and justice in the most challenging of settings—a sobering but intellectually rich research agenda for years to come.

Transitional Justice. I conti con il passato

2009 ◽  
pp. 5-26
Author(s):  
Pier Paolo Portinaro
Keyword(s):  
Collective Memory ◽  
Restorative Justice ◽  
Transitional Justice ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Truth Commissions ◽  
Democratic Transitions ◽  
Criminal Trials ◽  
The Past ◽  
Human Rights Abuse

- Transitional justice refers to the admission of wrongdoing, the recognition of its effects and the acceptance of responsibility for those effects. It provides an alternative to vengeance and a measure of accountability for the perpetrators and justice for the victims by establishing truth. The article considers the different ways of taking account of the past (from direct retaliation to amnesty, from prosecution of perpetrators responsible for large-scale state brutality to public discussion about human rights abuse and shaping of collective memory) and focuses the emergence of the paradigma of restorative justice. In amending tragic historical immoralities, restitution, reparation, apology, and reconciliation replace a universal comprehensive standard of criminal justice with a negotiated justice among opposing parties in specific cases. Drawing on the discussion of some recent studies (Teitel, Elster, Barkan, Frei, Koenig) concerning the role of criminal trials, lustration policies and truth commissions in democratic transitions, the article attempts to outline even broader conclusions about a theory of transitional justice.

The Role Ubuntu Could Have Played in Restorative Justice in Zimbabwe

2021 ◽  
pp. 130-140
Author(s):  
Gibson Ncube
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Restorative Justice ◽  
Transitional Justice ◽  
The Political ◽  
Human Rights Abuses ◽  
The People ◽  
Healing Of Wounds ◽  
Justice Model ◽  
The Will ◽  
Missed Opportunity

This chapter is interested in how there has been a lack of transitional justice in Zimbabwe in the aftermath of the political disturbances and genocide of the early 1980s. The overarching argument is that the failure to recognise the value of Ubuntu has engendered a missed opportunity at transitional justice and healing of wounds, which were caused by the massacres. Ubuntu's three fundamental praxes, according to Samkange, are the three fundamental maxims: the respect and recognition of the humanity of others, the preservation of life (human and otherwise), and the importance of the will of the people in as far as governance is concerned. The failure, by ZANU-PF governments, to recognise the salience of these three maxims has led to the persistent marginalisation of ethnic minorities and also the violent impunity of governance characterised by human rights abuses. This chapter proposes an Afrocentric restorative justice model that is founded on the concept of Ubuntu and focuses on the salience of the spirit of humanity in managing human conflicts.

scholarly journals POST-CONFLICT REGULATION: THE RULE OF LAW AND CONSTITUTION MAKING AS THE NUMBER ONE PRIORITY

World Science ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 2 (12(40)) ◽  
pp. 37-43
Author(s):  
Oksana Vasylchenko
Keyword(s):  
Conflict Resolution ◽  
Transitional Justice ◽  
Peace Building ◽  
Humanitarian Action ◽  
Adjustment Mechanism ◽  
Post Conflict ◽  
Lasting Peace ◽  
Normative Basis ◽  
Conflict Regulation ◽  
Constitution Building

Regardless of the cause of conflicts in a state, when the violence is ceased its aftermath should be dealt with. The most effective and targeted scenario of post-conflict regulation for every specific state would be designed and executed. The international community can play a crucial role in encouraging or combating peace process and building peace. The adjustment mechanism combines peacemaking with elements of nation-building, humanitarian action, transitional justice and recovery. One of the key elements of such a process involves possible revision, rewriting or even adoption of a new constitution to ensure an effective peace and security. In most cases, however, it is impossible to exclude the history and agreements that led up to a decision to make or re-make a constitution. Constitution building involves steps and sequences, and is not necessarily linear. Despite the important role that this process can play, little attention has been paid to the ways of developing and implementing participatory mechanisms and involving citizens in the process of creating a constitution conducive to a lasting peace. However, even developed in the best way constitutional and institutional framework cannot guarantee a stable democracy or permanent conflict resolution, although it can help it. Turning to the case of Ukraine, its Constitution needs changes though not that profound as in Africa for instance. Primarily, stabilization and conflict resolution in the east of Ukraine requires working towards the formation understanding of values and normative basis among people that will make intentions and practical measures of the current government legitimate and necessary in the eyes of the vast majority of the population. Ukraine should also take due notice of the complexity and comprehensive character of the process of peace building which hopefully will be launched in the nearest future.

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