Rethinking Restorative Justice after Political Violence.

South Africa's influential Truth and Reconciliation Commission advocated restorative justice as a response to the dilemmas of transitional justice. Critics charge that restorative approaches confuse justice with therapy and observe that transitional justice institutions have not lived up to their claim to aid victims in healing from past abuses. This paper argues that while such concerns are valid, they do not justify abandoning restorative justice as an alternative or complement to legalistic transitional justice strategies. Instead, the paper proposes a conceptual distinction between restorative justice and therapeutic justice. Whereas therapeutic justice has functioned depoliticize responses to atrocity, restorative justice incorporates political judgment and a commitment to address the political legacy of repression and abuse. I develop the argument by examining restorative justice theory and how it has been adapted to address challenges associated with the political and social legacies of political and structural violence, focusing on the role of restorative justice in truth commissions. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]