The Borderlands between Punitive and Non-punitive Transitional Justice: Distinct Elites and Diverging Patterns of Import/export

Abstract∞ Transitional justice consists of different ideals and practices that both coexist and conflict. This article investigates the socio-professional borderlands between punitive and non-punitive transitional justice initiatives by analyzing elites working in either international criminal courts, or truth and reconciliation commissions. While they were marginally linked, the professional practices of these elites were structured by their distinct positions in the larger market of transitional justice. Professionals of international criminal law were tied to international institutions from where they were often on the exporting side of particular internationalized, punitive norms and practices. In contrast, professionals involved with truth and reconciliation were closely connected to states that structured their import/export of internationalized, non-punitive initiatives. Punitive and non-punitive transitional justice was characterized not only by competing ideals and practices, but was embedded in distinct elites whose proximity to or distance from the state structured the circulation of transitional justice ideas and practices.

En(countering) Silence – Some Thoughts on Historical Justice after Memoricide

This essay argues that public historians and transitional justice experts need one another’s input in at least two crucial tasks facing nations after episodes of mass violence. In challenging the silence that typically envelopes post-war situations, the faithful recording of lived experiences of victims after violence is both a necessity and exceedingly complex. Here, oral history initiatives can significantly assist forensic investigations to develop a fuller picture of the suffering and crimes committed, but also to turn truth-telling into a healing experience for victims who often find forensic truth-telling on its own re-traumatizing. Conversely in efforts to memorialize wars, periods of oppression and struggles of liberation, public historians will do well to take seriously the testimonies of Truth and Reconciliation Commissions and other truth-telling fora in order to ensure that any exclusionary narratives which may arise after the conflict are themselves disrupted, even as a social consensus is fostered on the need to realize all the necessary guarantees of non-recurrence to avoid a return to a bad past.

Using African Truth and Reconciliation Commission documentation for truth telling and reconciliation

Truth and Reconciliation Commissions (TRCs) are established to document violations of human rights and international humanitarian law in post-conflict societies. The intent is to excavate the truth to avoid political speculations and create an understanding of the nature of the conflict. The documentation hence results in a common narrative which aims to facilitate reconciliation to avoid regression to conflict. TRCs therefore do a tremendous job and create compound documentation that includes written statements, interviews, live public testimonies of witnesses and they also publish final reports based on the accumulated materials. At the end of their mission, TRCs recommend the optimal use of their documentation since it is of paramount importance to the reconciliation process. Despite this ambition, the TRCs’ documentation is often politicized and out of reach for the victims and the post-conflict societies at large. The TRCs’ documentation is instead poorly diffused into the post conflict societies and their findings are not effectively disseminated and used.

Using African Truth and Reconciliation Commission documentation for truth telling and reconciliation

Truth and Reconciliation Commissions (TRCs) are established to document violations of human rights and international humanitarian law in post-conflict societies. The intent is to excavate the truth to avoid political speculations and create an understanding of the nature of the conflict. The documentation hence results in a common narrative which aims to facilitate reconciliation to avoid regression to conflict. TRCs therefore do a tremendous job and create compound documentation that includes written statements, interviews, live public testimonies of witnesses and they also publish final reports based on the accumulated materials. At the end of their mission, TRCs recommend the optimal use of their documentation since it is of paramount importance to the reconciliation process. Despite this ambition, the TRCs’ documentation is often politicized and out of reach for the victims and the post-conflict societies at large. The TRCs’ documentation is instead poorly diffused into the post conflict societies and their findings are not effectively disseminated and used.

The Relationship Between Trust and Truth and Reconciliation Commissions in Post-Conflict Sub-Saharan Countries

Sub-Saharan African countries have conducted Truth and Reconciliation Commissions (TRC) from the early 1970’s to 2020 in twenty-one different countries. TRCs have been chosen by states after armed conflicts, attempted or completed coups or in several cases after contested elections and election violence, in attempt to agree at a common “truth” to the events and to bring reconciliation to individual victims and polarized groups within the state. Most TRCs have claimed the need to build trust in institutions, government and communities as one of the reasons for the conduct of a TRC. However, despite extensive scholarly study of TRCs in general, and some study of sub-Saharan African TRCs (particularly the South African TRC) there is a lack of study of the relationship between TRCs and the development of trust. This study utilizes Afrobarometer data regarding trust in various governmental and quasi-governmental entities in ten Sub-Saharan African states that conducted a TRC. This study concludes that the processes in strong TRCs are related to the improvement in trust in some of the entities, but others are unaffected or show decreases in trust because the processes generally used in the TRC were not effective in creating trust.

The Greenland Reconciliation Commission: Moving Away from a Legal Framework

This article aims to show to what extent ideas and models from the fields of restorative and transitional justice informed the work of the Greenland Reconciliation Commission. The article demonstrates that the idea of processing the past by articulating experiences of both colonialism and neocolonialism dominated the approach taken, and that consequently the legal aspects were only occasionally touched upon. This sets the Greenland Reconciliation Commission somewhat apart from previous truth and reconciliation commissions.

JUSTICE, MERCY, AND EQUALITY IN DISCRETIONARY CRIMINAL JUSTICE DECISION MAKING

This essay examines whether, in exercising their discretion, criminal justice officials should do justice, grant mercy, and treat alleged or convicted offenders equally. Although it endorses doing justice, the essay maintains that officials should almost never reduce a just punishment simply to be merciful. Public officials are fiduciaries, and they ordinarily have no authority to make unmerited gifts. Sometimes, however, deciding not to inflict a just penalty can reflect the willingness of an entire society to forgive. That may be the case, for example, when truth and reconciliation commissions approve amnesties. The essay focuses on the teachings of Jesus Christ and questions some of them. It asks, for example, whether a modern chief executive would merit praise or condemnation if this executive followed Jesus's example in the case of the woman taken in adultery. The essay also suggests that—unlike other officials—chief executives exercising their pardon power need not act affirmatively to treat like cases alike. A conclusion notes that it would have been out of character for Jesus Christ to refuse a plea for mercy. Nevertheless, few Christians have endorsed an implication of his willingness to forgive—the abolition of criminal punishment.