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The last three decades have seen an increasing recognition of the potential of historical commissions as a tool to address the legacies of the past in contexts where social and political unrest and divisions are historically deeply rooted. Given their broad definition, historical commissions enjoy great flexibility in terms of how they carry out their investigations. This article analyzes the activities of the Historical Memory Group set up in Colombia in 2007, which adopted the historical memory paradigm, characterized by a combination of archival research and oral testimonies, as a core aspect of its investigative work, and argues that this paradigm provides a useful methodological approach to be included in the wide range of tools available to historical commissions. Keywords: historical commissions; historical memory; oral history; Historical Memory Group; Colombia, INTRODUCTION The last three decades have seen an increasing recognition of the potential of historical commissions as a tool to address the legacies of the past in contexts where social [...]

The article highlights the problem of gender-based sexual violence during the international armed conflict on the territory of Ukraine. Based on the analysis of international documents, customary international law, and scientific sources, it is shown that sexual violence and gender-based violence are distinct concepts. However, in the context of Ukrainian judicial practice under Article 438 "Violation of the Laws and Customs of War" of the Criminal Code of Ukraine, gender-based violence is exclusively sexual in nature and is expressed mainly in the form of gender-based rape. The doctrinal approach is supported, according to which the signs of sexual and gender-based violence are: 1) an act (an actual act), 2) coercion (an act committed against the person's will), 3) a cause (determined by gender), 4) consequences (causing one or more types of harm or suffering to a person). The author identifies the signs of rape related to armed conflict arising from the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, the Elements of Crimes of the International Criminal Court, and customary international law. The actus reus of rape is that the perpetrator has assaulted the body of a person by committing an act that resulted in penetration, even minor, of any part of the victim's or perpetrator's body with a sexual organ, or penetration of the victim's anus or vagina with any object or any part of the body; the fact that rape is a component of war crimes is determined by the presence of a specific situation (coercion by military personnel). The mens rea of rape is the need to establish the perpetrator's awareness of the encroachment on the human body by committing an act that resulted in penetration; the perpetrator's awareness of the circumstances of the act (use of force or threat of force, use of coercion, use of a coercive environment, inability of the person to give consent expressing his or her true will), including the absence of the victim's consent. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Can the legacy of state violence undermine participation in transitional justice services designed to consolidate peace after conflict? We argue that, in the aftermath of armed fighting, state-perpetrated violence leads to reduced uptake of government reconciliation policies. We leverage spatial and temporal variation in levels of civilian victimization by perpetrator and find that, in contrast to violence committed by non-state groups, violence carried out by state forces against civilians is associated with lower levels of enlistment in Colombia's state-run victims' registry. We replicate this relationship using survey data and present evidence linking victimization by the state to lower levels of trust in the government overall. Together, our analyses demonstrate that disaggregating the identity of armed actors can provide significant theoretical and empirical advances in our understanding of peacemaking and post-conflict reconstruction. In the Colombian case, the legacy of state violence leads to the systematic exclusion of certain types of victims from transitional justice and undermines trust in the institutions responsible for building durable pathways to peace. Consequently, our findings have implications for the design of transitional justice policies, the study of the legacies of conflict on political and social outcomes, and processes of post-conflict peacebuilding. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years, Europe has witnessed a surge of truth initiatives to address the legacy of its colonial past as well as the enduring consequences thereof in the present. In the summer of 2020, Belgium became the first European country to establish a historical (truth) commission to investigate the historical and ongoing injustices related to its history of overseas colonialism. In this article, I analyse the report of the Special Parliamentary Commission on the Socio-Economic Impact of Colonialism in Congo, Rwanda, and Burundi, to assess its contribution to broader debates on accountability and transformative change through the lens of disruptive accounts of the past. Additionally, the article explores Belgium’s truth initiatives ecosystem – of which the Commission was part of – to highlight the interplay between official truth-seeking processes and alternative narratives in confronting historical injustices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we examine the methodological possibilities of working with personal textile objects, such as clothes in need of mending, beloved personal blankets, and knotted rag dolls. Our focus is on a transdisciplinary project that sought to collectively explore how the bodies of professionals working for the Colombian Transitional Justice System are affected when engaging with narratives of war and conflict. We contend that textile making in this context serves a dual methodological purpose when facilitating spaces of careful research. Firstly, this material practice enables participants to pause and immerse themselves in their own experiences, something that in turn is generative of personal reflections. Secondly, the created objects become appreciation devices capable of documenting and eliciting memories that continually engage participants and researchers in new inquiries. Consequently, this paper contributes to the understanding of object-oriented methodologies as inherently relational and situated. Moreover, it aims to comprehend textile making practices as capable of unfolding care as a research practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With its signing of the Havana Peace Agreement in 2016, Colombia sought to end an armed conflict that had lasted more than sixty years and had left nearly nine million victims. The agreement led to the establishment of a transitional justice (TJ) framework, including the Commission for the Clarification of Truth, Coexistence, and Non-Repetition (CEV). This study identifies how the CEV incorporated the legacies of colonialism into its analytical framework. The research is based on in-depth interviews with twenty scholars specializing in colonialism and/or TJ, nineteen peacebuilders, informal conversations with CEV members, and a review of various volumes of the final report. The findings highlight that the commission adopted a long-term historical perspective, revisiting aspects of Spanish colonialism (including structural racism and the hacienda system as an institution of territorial, political, and economic order) as explanatory factors for the various forms of violence experienced during the armed conflict. Additionally, several volumes of the final report emphasize the ongoing impact of colonial legacies, viewing them more as continuities or “ruins,” using Stoler’s concept (2008). While the possibility of dismantling colonial legacies on a material level due to the CEV’s work is debated, its symbolic significance must be highlighted, especially in a context where the State had sought to erase the colonial past. This article contributes to the emerging literature that examines TJ from a decolonial perspective, providing an empirical analysis of the CEV in Colombia, which we believe can become a key reference for this field. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Following transitions from authoritarianism, newly democratic governments confront the challenge of dealing with individuals who served the former regime. A prominent argument in the transitional justice literature holds that it is best not to exclude such individuals and to take advantage of their expertise in rebuilding a democratic system. A critical question in this context is whether former collaborators will act in ways that are sufficiently similar to untainted officials. We examine this question by focusing on judges with ties to the Nazi regime in the West German judiciary. We demonstrate that accused Nazi criminals who were charged in courts staffed with a greater proportion of tainted judges had substantially higher odds of escaping conviction. We also show that the appeals process was not able to eliminate this bias. These findings have direct implications for the trade-offs involved in retaining individuals with ties to an authoritarian regime and the connection between transitional justice and the rule of law. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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In this article, I name and describe the field of institutional justice, which comprises all forms of child institutional abuse and neglect, related historical/policy wrongs, and responses to them. I argue that institutional justice requires its own theoretical framework, one not part of the empire of transitional justice (McAuliffe, 2011) and one true to its subject and capable of building a body of theorized empirical research. I present and discuss my theoretical framework, which draws from Derrida's (1992) conception of justice; research on transitional, historical, and institutional justice; and my international project on institutional justice. The framework's elements are justice as "a promise," victims' struggles and aspirations for justice (for recognition, truth, accountability, and redress), and the limits and unsettled qualities of justice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The growing success of populist parties around the world has generated heated debates about memory politics and the legacies of authoritarian regimes. As the case of Hungary shows, however, the weaponization of history to justify a populist division of society does not necessarily translate into the approval of Transitional Justice (TJ) laws. Does the growing presence of populist actors in parliaments have any impact on the adoption of TJ laws? We answer this question by analyzing a unique dataset of 27 third wave democracies from Africa, Asia, Europe and Latin America, between 1975 and 2020. We show that populist parties 'talk the talk' but do not 'walk the walk': the higher their presence in parliament, the lower the chances of the approval of TJ laws. This remains true even when parliaments show a strong presence of parties that normally approve a higher number of TJ laws because historically they opposed the previous authoritarian regime. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, I rely on religious existential philosophy to make sense of the moral restoration expressed by combat veterans who engage in reconciliation with former enemies after suffering from moral injury. Moral injury is the persistent feeling of having betrayed one's deepest moral values. Anthropological research and analyses of combat veterans' testimony suggest that moral injury may be associated with reconciliation, which is considered here as a manifestation of an inner transformation akin to existential philosophies of striving for moral authenticity. Specifically, it is argued that Thomas Merton's defense of living a morally authentic life, which constitutes a process of moving from spiritual woundedness to social engagement with the other, parallels the transition of combat veterans involved in postconflict reconciliation efforts. Given this correspondence, existential moral transformation is considered alongside the anthropology of peace for explaining moral injury as a precondition for reconciliation, notably after armed conflict. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Does the implementation of transitional justice (TJ) mechanisms such as trials, truth commissions, and institutional reforms reduce corruption by enhancing accountability, building trust, and creating a culture of deterrence? Although prior work has studied whether economic crimes should be included in TJ agendas, TJ's potential to address corruption has been mostly overlooked. On the one hand, theory suggests that TJ could reduce corruption; yet, on the other, it indicates that TJ mechanisms are not effective enough at solving deep-rooted corruption. Testing these opposing arguments using data from 106 postconflict countries that experienced conflict between 1946 and 2006, I find that the implementation of TJ and corruption are not statistically associated. However, when I further investigate this relationship with only "well-implemented" TJ mechanisms, purges are found to be negatively associated with political corruption and amnesties are positively associated with regime corruption. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Both South Africa and Argentina have experienced tyrannical and oppressive periods of political leadership. Ultimately, this has led both nations to ask - how do we create a stable future, and how do we come to terms with the crimes of the past? This piece will look at the mechanisms that were employed by both countries throughout this process and the outcomes they achieved. More importantly though, it will frame the responses in a contract analogy. It will look to the ‘bargain’ struck between victims and perpetrators. It will then critically analyse the way that existing power structures shape this ‘bargain’ and how it impacts the extent and quality of truth, along with outcomes for victims.

With its signing of the Havana Peace Agreement in 2016, Colombia sought to end an armed conflict that had lasted more than sixty years and had left nearly nine million victims. The agreement led to the establishment of a transitional justice (TJ) framework, including the Commission for the Clarification of Truth, Coexistence, and Non-Repetition (CEV). This study identifies how the CEV incorporated the legacies of colonialism into its analytical framework. The research is based on in-depth interviews with twenty scholars specializing in colonialism and/or TJ, nineteen peacebuilders, informal conversations with CEV members, and a review of various volumes of the final report. The findings highlight that the commission adopted a long-term historical perspective, revisiting aspects of Spanish colonialism (including structural racism and the hacienda system as an institution of territorial, political, and economic order) as explanatory factors for the various forms of violence experienced during the armed conflict. Additionally, several volumes of the final report emphasize the ongoing impact of colonial legacies, viewing them more as continuities or “ruins,” using Stoler’s concept (2008). While the possibility of dismantling colonial legacies on a material level due to the CEV’s work is debated, its symbolic significance must be highlighted, especially in a context where the State had sought to erase the colonial past. This article contributes to the emerging literature that examines TJ from a decolonial perspective, providing an empirical analysis of the CEV in Colombia, which we believe can become a key reference for this field.

Peacebuilding and transitional justice are the intervention processes that are very important in war-torn societies in the post-conflict period, and their relations with each other are worthy of attention. There has always been the challenge of revenge and forgiveness, that is, criminal justice on the one hand and national reconciliation on the other. Regarding the interaction between Peacebuilding and transitional justice, distinct, conflicting, and even contradictory opinions have been raised. The following lines are intended to comment on the interaction of Peacebuilding and transitional justice in the post-conflict period. Therefore, it is shown that these two are related to each other and work parallel in conflict situations. According to the topic under discussion, the current research is descriptive-analytical and it was done through the library method. The following article has shown that the peace and justice that takes place with the intervention and entry of peacekeepers and foreign forces (so-called top-down peace and justice) is different from the local peace and justice without the entry and intervention of outsiders. (so-called peace and justice from the bottom up) and they do not always have the same results. Therefore, transitional justice and Peacebuilding are not only in conflict with each other. However, the results of the study of the relationship between transitional justice and Peacebuilding indicate that these two processes due to only dealing with past violence, have caused socio-economic justice or normal and social daily behaviors to be marginalized.

Across the world, an increasing number of states or state representatives have offered apologies for human rights violations, particularly since the 1990s. There is debate, however, on how valuable such gestures are and what impact they have. To address this, we examined what the perspectives of victim community members and the general public are in this regard, in different parts of the world. We focused on the apologies for the El Mozote massacre in El Salvador, the Jeju 4.3 events in the Republic of Korea, and Bloody Sunday in the United Kingdom, whereby we conducted 127 in-depth interviews with members of victim communities and the general public in these countries. Using thematic analysis, we found across these three countries that participants from the victim group and the general public saw the apology as a meaningful event because it acknowledges the suffering of the victims and breaks the silence about past atrocities. This suggests that apologies may answer to a broadly shared need for recognition. Nevertheless, the apologies were also regarded as limited in terms of their overall role in reconciliation processes and the further changes that they generate. The article concludes by discussing this ambivalence, present in both the apology literature as among our participants' responses across the world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article is aimed at highlighting the issue of existing ways of compensation for victims of military conflict. It is stated that international law requires violating States to take appropriate measures to compensate for the damage caused directly by their actions or by the actions of persons acting on their orders. The author establishes that the beneficiaries of reparation for violations of IHL are the persons who have been victims or suffered as a result of such violations, namely: civilians, prisoners of war, family members and relatives of victims, and the State. The author provides options for filing claims for compensation for damage caused as a result of war: appeals to national courts, courts of foreign countries, the European Court of Human Rights, the International Court of Justice, investment arbitration, specially created funds or commissions. It is emphasised that currently there is no universal mechanism for compensation for damage caused by Russia’s armed aggression against Ukraine. However, the most realistic mechanism for Ukraine is the established international compensation mechanism, which aims to compensate for damage and losses caused by the Russian Federation and provides for the possibility of compensation for various types of losses - from destruction and damage to property to damage due to loss of control over property. It is concluded that: the importance of compensation is significant, especially in the context of IHL, as people who have been victims of armed conflict face long-term consequences affecting their health, earning potential and overall stability of life; an important element of reparation and one of the guarantees of its implementation in practice is the collection and documentation of a high-quality evidence base of the damage caused both in civil and criminal proceedings; the main indicator for choosing a particular mechanism of reparation is its effectiveness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Transitional justice from below in Guatemala: Experience of the Association for Justice and Reconciliation Although criminal accountability is a central component of transitional justice (TJ), the way it converges or clashes with the practices and expectations of those affected by extreme violence is not always clear. What collective processes lead communities to embrace and pursue legal cases? What challenges does the involvement of historically violated and marginalized populations entail? In this article, we analyse the experience of an organization of survivors of the Guatemalan armed conflict that has been key to filing lawsuits for genocide. Based on the perspectives of its members, we highlight the importance of local and international intermediaries for the formation and persistence of the group, and we explore the challenges to its continuity. Our findings suggest the need to delve deeper into the contradictions between TJ and the diversity of indigenous conceptions of justice, economic constraints and gender inequities that limit the mobilisation of male and female survivors. Resumen Aunque la responsabilización penal es un componente central de la justicia transicional (JT), no siempre es nítido el modo en que converge o choca con las prácticas y expectativas de las víctimas de atrocidades masivas. ¿Qué procesos colectivos explican la adopción y sosteni-miento de causas legales en contextos comunitarios? ¿Qué desafíos conlleva el involucramien-to de poblaciones históricamente violentadas y marginalizadas? En este artículo analizamos la experiencia de una organización de sobrevivientes del conflicto armado guatemalteco que fue clave para posicionar demandas judiciales por genocidio. Con base en las perspectivas de sus integrantes destacamos la centralidad de los intermediarios locales e internacionales para la conformación y persistencia del grupo, y exploramos los retos para su continuidad. Nuestros hallazgos sugieren la necesidad de profundizar las contradicciones entre la JT y la diversidad de concepciones de justicia indígenas, así como las constricciones económicas y desigualdades de género que limitan la movilización de hombres y mujeres sobrevivientes.

Objectives The purpose of the article is to provide an overview of the importance and scale of the use of mechanisms belonging to the doctrine of transitional justice during the armed conflict in Ukraine in 2022-2023. Material and methods In the research process, the authors apply the analysis of selected rulings, the analysis of the positions and views of selected representatives of the doctrine – security studies and legal studies in particular – as well as formal-dogmatic and historical approaches. Results It is demonstrated that the broadest spectrum of institutions and mechanisms falling under transitional justice to date has been used during this armed conflict. This enabled, on a scale never seen before, obtaining a comprehensive and complex picture of the crimes committed during the war effort. At the same time, it is emphasized that the Ukrainian side, using the support of states, international organizations and institutions of international criminal justice, has been able to implement numerous institutions to achieve the goals of transitional justice. Conclusions According to the authors, the burden of their tasks will not only, or perhaps not primarily, concern the implementation of retribution for the deed, but in the post-war period will have to enable the reconciliation of the population within the country, which seems very difficult from today's perspective, given the current political situation in eastern Ukraine.

In recent decades, Spain has enacted two national laws on historical and democratic memory (in 2007 and 2022), alongside numerous laws at the sub-national level. The significance of these laws goes beyond their symbolic value; they not only contribute to collective memory but also acknowledge the plight of victims. This paper aims to analyze the factors influencing regional regulations on historical and democratic memory in Spain. Our focus will be on the drafting processes, exploring the political factors that shape their approval in different regions. Additionally, we will investigate regions that have yet to enact memory laws to understand the reasons behind the absence of such legislation.

AbstractFor centuries, international reparations were commonly exacted as a form of victor’s justice after war. Following World War II, however, the bitter legacy of the Treaty of Versailles and West Germany’s compensation of Nazism’s victim shifted this practice, ushering in a novel moral economy of international reparations. Yet, while recent decades have seen increased transnational activism around reparations, as well as interstate aid payments and official apologies, international reparations remain infrequent, and agreements often fail to end financial claims. This paper argues that one explanation for this lackluster record is a central paradox relating to finality. Though international reparations are designed to settle accounts and provide a basis for deeper reconciliation, by opening issues of traumatic memory to public debate, they often achieve the opposite effect and inspire a cascade of further financial claims. As evidence, we examine three cases of international reparations’ occurrence and rejection: Germany’s reparations for Nazi-era crimes, the United Nations Compensation Commission (UNCC) formation following Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait, and reparations negotiated but removed from the 1973 Paris Peace Accords. Employing process tracing methods on archival documents, we demonstrate in each case how this paradox helps explain international reparations’ limitations as a practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

AbstractThis essay turns to adoption archives as a key site for imagining justice in both law and literature, taking South Korea’s history of transnational adoption as its focus. Adoptees are made through documents: case files, consent forms, advertisements and brochures, applications, home studies, and certificates that render them into adoptable subjects. On the one hand, these archives hold the promise of recovery, containing information needed to contextualize oneself and find one’s first families. Yet these documents also pose interpretive difficulties through their opacities, omissions, and fabrications, not to mention their lack of access. This essay proposes that efforts towards justice for Korean adoptees must proceed from a robust understanding of adoption archives: a knowledge that involves the complicated legal, ethical, and interpretive problems that surround these documents, as well as the difficult affective and intellectual relationships adoptees have with institutional record-holders as well as with the documents themselves. As a step towards this fuller reckoning, this essay provides a description and theorization of adoption archives in relation to foundational and recent developments in archive theory. It then outlines the legal histories and frameworks surrounding Korean adoption archives as they exist today, while also attending to the practical experiences of adoptees in accessing their records. Finally, it turns to recent literary works on Korean adoption that center adoption documents, exploring how literature provides a productive space for exploring the complexity of the archive. Ultimately, the essay proposes that archives matter not just as a source of violence or recovery, or as an unrecoverable origin, but rather through their representational forms and their implications for the adoption imagination. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article explores the domestic implementation of international criminal law and complementarity, when operating alongside parallel transitional justice approaches. International criminal justice in Uganda is best understood as part of the broader lens of transitional justice, in response to a two-decade war in the Northern part of the country. Besides a doctrinal analysis of the relevant legal regime and cases, the article benefits from the author’s personal insights working in Uganda and The Hague, the two sites of international justice that inform this article. Specifically, the International Crimes Division (icd) which is the specialised court dealing with war crimes and crimes against humanity and the International Criminal Court (icc). The article highlights critical paradoxes of the icd and trial of former rebel Thomas Kwoyelo, putting this domesticated International Criminal Justice regime in a dilemma, also suggesting pathways for reforms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The post-conflict landscape of Bosnia and Herzegovina remains deeply fragmented, characterized by the interplay of international and domestic responses to atrocity crimes committed during the 1992–1995 war. The Dayton Peace Agreement established frameworks to address these atrocities but also entrenched ethnic divisions. Bosnia and Herzegovina’s judicial measures, led by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia and domestic courts, aimed to establish accountability but faced significant challenges, including political polarization. Civil society organizations and cultural initiatives have played important roles, yet their efforts are often hindered with, for example, the continuity of ethnic grievances. Drawing on the EU cost Action ca18228 Scoping Survey on states’ interactions with international criminal justice, this paper explores how different actors in BiH navigated the responses to atrocity crimes and assesses what has been fulfilled or left unfulfilled. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Mass human rights violations, such as those which occurred during the Albanian Dictatorship (1945–1991), can impact citizens across generations. Decades later, the lives of families and community members are often defined by efforts to achieve justice and prevent similar future experiences. Existing research shows that social identities predict how survivors experience, understand, and cope with these violations. On the other hand, social identities can also inform societal-level strategies of peace and reconciliation in the aftermath. However, it is not known how ingroup norms (e.g., familial, civic) impact intergenerational understandings of and responses toward transitional justice. To explore this, we analyze the accounts of first-generation survivors of human rights violations during the Albanian Dictatorship and their descendants (n = 52). The data were analyzed through reflexive thematic analysis informed theoretically by the Social Identity Approach and conceptually by transitional justice frameworks. The findings indicate that families take a central role in determining how past harms are understood and responded to, and that associated identity-based norms (e.g., family norms) inform transmission of knowledge about past harms and appropriate forms of justice. Identity-based norms can also determine which justice processes are deemed acceptable for the next generation/s to engage in (e.g., peaceful responses, documentation of past harm, education of new generations, and fights for democracy). Implications for social identity and justice theories, as well as for practice, are discussed. Public Significance Statement: The present study suggests that family and civic social norms can guide intergenerational understanding and coping with mass human rights violations as well as responses to transitional justice processes (e.g., nonvengeance, documenting violations, democracy building) in the aftermath. As such, social norms should be integrated in the efforts for peace and reconciliation building. The findings also highlight the different benefits and harms of transmitting knowledge of the violations across generations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Transitional justice jurisdictions aim to promote reconciliation. Although previous research focuses on truth commissions, the reconciliatory role of redistributive justice is less clear. This article investigated the association of conditional cash transfers and victims' reparation with demand for redistribution, belief in forgiveness, support for the peace process and community participation in Colombia. We analysed three nationally representative samples of the Latin American Public Opinion Project (LAPOP) surveys in 2011 (Study 1; n = 1503), 2016 (Study 2; n = 1563) and 2018 (Study 3; n = 1663). Consistently across studies, conditional cash transfers (and not victim reparation programs) predicted higher community participation, with little effect on other reconciliation indicators. Further, redistribution is indirectly associated with other reconciliation indicators through community participation, supporting the observation that transitional justice relates to reconciliation when it satisfies a need for agency and empowerment. We discuss how the null effects of the victim reparation program suggesting context‐specific constraints. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To avoid the disastrous effects of climate change, a rapid and drastic transition toward a low-carbon society and economy is required. This transition imposes significant transitional losses on some agents given the benefits they can no longer realize. In economic terms, it leads to the stranding of their assets. This article investigates whether fossil fuel owners could refer to their expectations about the benefits of producing their reserves to justify transitional measures such as exemptions from new rules or financial compensations. It criticizes forward-looking views on the normative relevance of expectations and defends a backward-looking view, which justifies limited claims. It contends that states that are responsible for creating false expectations about regulatory stability should provide compensations to fossil fuel companies for the costs of relying on those expectations. States can be held responsible if they caused this expectation-related harm in a foreseeable and avoidable way, which is only the case if the expectation is reasonable and if they were not put under pressure by the lobbying activities of the fossil fuel industry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

I assess a justification for the granting of transitional amnesties conditional, at the minimum, upon full disclosure of wrongdoing by perpetrators. According to this rationale, such amnesties are morally legitimate because they foster restorative justice. I distinguish between two conceptions of restorative justice that I call the punishment-deprioritizing and punishment-prescribing conceptions. I argue that while conditional amnesties granted to perpetrators of minor offences conditional upon full disclosure, verbal apology and reparations could promote restorative justice well enough to justify them in the eyes of adherents of the punishment-deprioritizing conception, conditional amnesties in favour of perpetrators of serious human rights abuses, because they are unlikely ever to be conditional upon perpetrators' carrying out burdensome reparations, are likely to promote restorative justice on the punishment-deprioritizing conception only to a limited extent and not enough to justify them from the standpoint of adherents to this conception. Conditional amnesties, I contend, cannot ever promote restorative justice on the punishment-prescribing conception because it holds that punishment is indispensable for the achievement of the aims of restorative justice and amnesties exempt perpetrators from criminal punishment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: The purpose of the article is to show the regime of truth in the institutional commissions that have the objective of restoring history by establishing a democratic, equitable, comprehensive, inclusive and fair criterion against the attempts of re-victimization and suppression of memory that Western political and cultural traditions have installed through their mechanisms of power. Design/methodology/approach: Based on the analysis of the cases of Inés Fernández Ortega and Valentina Rosendo Cantú, they establish the material conditions from which prejudices and hegemonic stereotypes are intertwined to reproduce serious violations of human rights in democratic political and epistemic frameworks. The colonial function of the truth commissions in Mexico is analyzed, which are presented as mechanisms for social development, political and colonial reproduction of liberal democracy. Findings: The qualitative results allow considering the way in which the different truth commissions in Mexico have been strongly linked to epistemic mechanisms in which truth and justice favor the reproduction of established relationships based on race, social class and gender. Especially in the so-called democratic transition, violence, truth and justice come together to highlight power relations in situations that have been disavowed by the intelligentsia. Research limitations/implications: The limitations of the research are found in the historical configuration of the truth commissions in Mexico. The data, references and assessments are crossed by the initial function of the truth commissions and the establishment of apparatuses and mechanisms based on transitional justice. Based on this, it can be considered a methodological oversight to shift the analysis of truth commissions toward a critical assessment of the truth as a regime of government and hegemonic and colonization criteria from two very specific cases. Originality/value: The originality of the work is found in the critical discernment of truth as a political category and the coloniality of power. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 1986, Uruguay's maximum security Punta Carretas Prison closed following a riot in the context of Uruguay's transition from authoritarian civic-military dictatorship (1973-1985) to constitutional democracy. In 1994, the building reopened as Punta Carretas Shopping, one of Uruguay's most luxurious shopping malls. In this article, I show how two site-specific installations at the prison-mall—the temporary photography exhibition, Brava: Memoria fotográfica de Punta de las Carretas (2019) and the permanent memorial installation, Memorial Ex Penal de Punta Carretas (2020)—put forth distinct versions of the past to shape the memory of Punta Carretas. I call these mnemonic interventions because they interrupt the shopping trip and divert attention away from leisure and consumption toward remembrance, provoking the shopper to engage with the space of the former prison and its history. I demonstrate how different stakeholders struggle over memory in Uruguay in a context in which impunity undermines efforts toward truth and justice. Mnemonic interventions at Punta Carretas Shopping reveal the ongoing struggle over how the past should be remembered in Uruguay decades after the transition to democracy, showing the impact of recent transitional justice policies to demarcate sites of memory and resistance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Hungary has had an intense engagement with international criminal justice. During communism and democracy alike, the normative framework and language of international criminal law was used to delegitimise the political opponent. This article aims to describe the way international criminal law was repeatedly instrumentalized to not simply serve as a genuine tool for justice but also as a potent political pawn through presenting the use of international criminal law in four different time periods: (1) during the post-World War ii war crimes trials at the People’s Tribunals; (2) the adoption of universal jurisdiction during the communist era as a tool of Cold War status competition; (3) in the 1990s, as an instrument of transitional justice; and finally, (4) in the post-2010s, as a tool for memory politics and anti-migration propaganda. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this article is to elucidate the transition from grassroots movements advocating for memory preservation to the acknowledgment of memory as a state policy. It perceives the State not as a static entity but as a dynamic arena of power struggles between dominant and subordinate groups, whose transformations lead to reconfigurations. The analysis focuses on the social and political dynamics between Law 975 of 2005 (the Justice and Peace Law) and the Victims Law (Law 1448 of 2011), delineating a highly contentious process that culminated in the institutionalization of public memory policy in Colombia. This transition emphasizes the State's obligation to democratize memory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Why it is that if Mexico went from an authoritarian regime to a supposedly democratic one in which various instances of transitional justice have been implemented that the country suffers nowadays unprecedented levels of violence? Two hypotheses have been proposed. First, the specific manner in which the democratic transition occurred, made effective transitional justice impossible. Second, transitional justice implemented by the first democratically elected government (2000-2006), was a simulation. This constituted a de facto amnesty for perpetrators of human rights violations of the authoritarian past. The aim is to demonstrate that the modality in which the democratic transition occurred determined the meager results of transitional justice mechanisms and that impunity for the crimes of the past led to the uptick in delinquency at the present time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Court of the Special Justice for Peace JEP is where the most relevant legal-political processes arrive in Colombia's transition from armed conflict to peace. Different social, political, and economic sectors, including the media, have supported and questioned the JEP, which has been critical and skeptical of its processes. The Media Observatory of the University of La Sabana analyzed 530 news stories published by 15 reference media on their Facebook profiles and web portals, seeking to determine the process of public agenda construction and the frames of interpretation about the actions and decisions of the JEP. The research employed a mixed content analysis methodology. Initially, information was collected from a "first screen" on Facebook using the CrowdTangle platform. The news stories were published between January 1 and July 28, 2021. Subsequently, a descriptive and correlational statistical analysis with SPSS was carried out. A tendency to orient transitional justice processes towards the value of criminal justice is identified, leaving the values of truth, reparation, and non-repetition in the background. This is added to an inclination to focus all the analysis on the consequences of the JEP's decisions, their legitimacy, and legality, leaving aside the problematization, causality, and perspective of the solution to the conflict. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is often stigma attached to being the victim of state violence, as being targeted by state violence is often seen as proof that a person is guilty. This article discusses whether trials as part of transitional justice can challenge such stigma. Trials can provide a legal truth, through identifying what has happened, who the perpetrators are, and who the victim is. Trials and court hearings are an expression of what societies accept, and when a perpetrator is sentenced it is an expression of solidarity with the victim. The article compares how persons targeted by state violence by former regimes in Argentina and Peru describe and perceive of such stigma, how stigma has changed over time and with contemporary trials. There are important differences between the countries regarding the violent history, the groups targeted by state violence, and the ongoing trials, also regarding the outcome of the trials. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Analyzing how transitional justice (TJ) mechanisms address the role of economic and political elites in contexts of widespread violence is crucial for understanding their possible transformative impact. The type of challenges faced by TJ instruments when trying to deal with economic elites involved in human rights violations also reflects the extent and degree of these groups' power in a specific transitional context. Looking at the two main transitional justice processes in Colombia, this paper argues that accountability for these privileged actors tends to materialize in cases in which the alliances between different kinds of elites are threatened, or even collapse. However, as this article will show, judicial TJ mechanisms on their own can only have a very limited transformative impact on the accountability of economic elites and their liability for human rights violations in the absence of strong support by state institutions. TJ instruments can provide an exceptional framework to trigger and motivate meaningful transformations. Nonetheless, the concrete realization of these changes far exceeds the possibilities, capacity, and resources of TJ, which in and of itself cannot replace state institutions, especially an ordinary justice system that should continue to make progress on these cases. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How do domestic trials addressing wartime violence affect public opinion of government? The legitimation functions of national courts are well studied in liberal democracies, but less is known about the effects of trials that address abuses committed during large-scale conflict. This article investigates how the extent to which such trials achieve procedural justice (fairness in process) and retributive justice (allocation of punishment) affects perceptions of political legitimacy. I provide survey-experimental evidence from post-conflict El Salvador that leverages the repeal of a longstanding amnesty law. Although a trial in general improves citizen evaluations of state competence, fairness and punishment serve crucial – and distinct – legitimation functions. Procedural fairness significantly increased citizens' willingness to comply with state authorities, regardless of trial outcome. Yet, an un fair trial, when coupled with punishment, bolstered trust in politicians and the judiciary. This suggests a trade-off between public preferences for fairness and an 'iron fist' approach to violence. The findings reveal the limits of procedural justice in a post-conflict environment and furnish new insights on the multifaceted functions of human rights trials. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite being the most prevalent form of violence in transitional settings emerging from armed conflict or authoritarian repression, intimate partner violence (IPV) has not been explicitly addressed in the mandate or investigation of any truth commission to date. Yet, using my original Gender Violence in Truth Commissions (GVTC) database, I shockingly found that one quarter of all truth commissions include references to IPV in their final reports. This article explores the tension between the lack of explicit inclusion of IPV in transitional justice processes such as truth commissions and the appearance of these references. I first outline the theoretical argument for why IPV should be included within transitional justice mechanisms. Obstacles to explicit inclusion of IPV are then identified, such the belief that it is a "private" form of harm unrelated to armed conflict or authoritarianism. By analyzing GVTC data, I show that IPV theoretically should and practically can be addressed within transitional justice processes, at least within truth commissions, and reveal characteristics that have enabled IPV to emerge within final reports. This article is the first systematic cross-national analysis of IPV within transitional justice, and the first work specifically on IPV and truth commissions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An introduction is presented in which the editor discusses articles in the issue on topics including various book reviews on topics such as children born of war, Gurkha mercenaries and transitional justice.

An introduction is presented in which the editor discusses articles in the issue on topics including gender violence in transitional justice, confessions of sexual violence by former FARC members in Colombia and researching sexual violence with ex-combatants in Peru.

This article examines a rare event: confessions to "intimate" acts of sexual violence by the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC). Using a dramaturgical approach, it explores the transformation of "confessional acts" from silence and denial to excuses to eventual remorse and condemnation. It explains the shifts in the FARC's narratives (scripts) in terms of who performed them (actors), when and where (stage and timing), audiences' reactions, and the role of directors (FARC leaders). The article uses the unique FARC case to consider how confessional acts can break global patterns of denial and silence around sexual violence in armed conflicts. As sexual violence lacks heroic or military justification and has the potential to harm armed groups' image, it is logical that leaders would attempt to manage what is said. Audiences comprised of the FARC's opponents, former combatants, victim-survivors, and enemies influenced scripts. On alternative stages, new narratives acknowledged sexual violence and acceptance of responsibility for it. Over time, leaders lost directorial control over the original denial performance. Understanding this dramatic and contentious process, the article contends, holds the potential for helping to build a strong norm – shared by all sides of Colombia's polarized post-war society – to condemn sexual violation whenever it occurs and whoever is involved. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Araucaria is the property of Araucaria-Revista Iberoamericana de Filosofia, Politica y Humanidades and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Araucaria is the property of Araucaria-Revista Iberoamericana de Filosofia, Politica y Humanidades and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Araucaria is the property of Araucaria-Revista Iberoamericana de Filosofia, Politica y Humanidades and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The transitional justice field has shown great versatility in its response to the consequences of conflicts, dealing with human rights violations, addressing legacies of the past and tackling emerging issues and vulnerabilities. This editorial reflects on Africa's three decades of implementing transitional justice with a focus on key lessons learnt and their contribution to the betterment of transitional justice offering on the continent. The editorial discusses an African transformative justice as codified in the African Union Transitional Justice Policy as responsive, resonant and contextually relevant to the lived realities on the continent. The editorial argues that the African Union Transitional Justice Policy is the embodiment of lessons learnt from transitional justice practice on the continent and demonstrates the adaptability and expansion of the frontiers of transitional justice to address emerging issues as well as both historical legacies and most recent violations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years, scholars and activists have been asking queer questions about transitional justice. Queer perspectives advocate for the recognition of anti-queer violence within transitional justice; the inclusion of LGBTQIA+ people in transitional justice processes; and the development of queer decolonial critiques of transitional justice. Informed by this research agenda, I develop a queer perspective to the global governance of transitional justice. I analyse documents from the UN, the International Center for Transitional Justice and the International Criminal Court. Representing mechanisms from across global transitional justice, I trace the (cis-heteronormative, colonial, carceral) violence of transitional justice and its institutionalization at the global level. I reflect on the queer tensions and (im)possibilities of global transitional justice, a site that is violent but holds transformative potential. The global governance of transitional justice must be queered to expand its social, political and conceptual remit, and to seek more radical, liberatory worlds within and beyond formal justice mechanisms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 2017, Taiwan's government proposed reforms to the Indigenous Specialized Criminal Court (ISC) within its criminal court system (court system). Situated within the contemporary theoretical framework of transitional justice, this article explores the theoretical significance of these reforms and examines their actual state of implementation. Firstly, the article points out that the court system has led to structural injustices like the erasure of culture and socio-economic disadvantages for indigenous peoples, highlighting the limitations of the conventional transitional justice model in addressing these injustices. As a response, the ISC reform adopts strategies that differ from the conventional model. The article then attempts to develop an enhanced transitional justice model that includes structural injustices within its scope and explains the ISC reform initiatives and their inherent transitional justice significance. Finally, by evaluating the implementation status of the ISC reform, the article elucidates its theoretical implications and the feedback it offers to contemporary theoretical debates. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]