Transitional Justice: Legacies and Futures

Author: Chrisje Brants; Susanne Karfstedt; Nandor Knust
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 9780367679101
Published In: July 2026
Format: Hardback
Jurisdiction: U.K. ? Disclaimer:
Countri(es) stated herein are used as reference only

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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.

1. Introduction

Susanne Karstedt, Chrisje Brants and Nandor Knust

Part 1: Interrogating The Impact of Transitional Justice

2. The Social Construction of Effectiveness and Legitimacy in Transitional Justice

Chrisje Brants

3. Divided Societies and Reconciliation: The Legitimacy of International Criminal Prosecutions

Birju Kotecha

4. Transformative Justice and the Need for a Multi-Dimensional Understanding of Impact

Tine Destrooper

5. Structural Legal Components of Transitional Justice

Nandor Knust

Part II: The Political in Transitional Justice: Networks, Actors, and Discourse

6. The Political in Transitional Justice

Line Engbo Gissel

7. Transitional Justice between the Individual and the State: Reading Societal Responsibility for Atrocity into the Archives of the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia

Andy Aydın-Aitchison

8. Human Rights Advocacy in International Criminal Justice: Whose Rights? Whose Justice?

Kjersti Lohne

9. Narratives on Child Soldiers in Transitional Justice Discourses

Leonie Steinl

10. Commissions in Transitional Justice: The Transnational Elites in the Engine Room

Mikkel Jarle Christensen

Part III: Lessons Learned for Transitional Justice?

11. Mainstreaming Transitional Justice in Africa: What South Sudan’s Experience Teaches

Kerstin Bree Carlson

12. Security Forces’ Responses to Transitional Justice: From Violence to Diversion

Valérie Arnould