Suchergebnisse

Transitional societies must contend with a range of complex challenges as they seek to come to terms with and move beyond an immediate past saturated with mass murder, rape, torture, exploitation, disappearance, displacement, starvation, and all other manner of human suffering. Questions of justice figure prominently in these transitional moments, and they do so in a dual fashion that is at once backward and forward looking. Successor governments must think creatively about building institutions that bring justice to the past, while at the same time demonstrate a commitment that justice will form a bedrock of governance in the present and future. This is no easy task, and shortcuts, both in dealing with the past and in building a just future, often appear irresistible. In Martha Minow's words, justice at this juncture amounts to replacing "violence with words and terror with fairness," and steering a "path between too much memory and too much forgetting." The template of mechanisms available to undertake transitional justice are familiar to those who work in this field: prosecutions (domestic and international); truth and reconciliation commissions; lustration (the shaming and banning of perpetrators from public office); public access to police, military and other governmental records; public apology; public memorials; reburial of victims; compensation or reparation to victims and/or their families (in the form of money, land, or other resources); literary and historical writing; and blanket or individualized amnesty. In most cases, justice demands the deployment of a number of these tools, given that no one of them can adequately address and repair the injuries of the past nor chart a fully just future. Transitional justice will always be both incomplete and messy.

"Elections in Africa are competitive in nature and can be manipulated by incumbents to extend and entrench their rule through changes to constitutions, intimidation of opponents, excess use of police force and, in some cases, assassinations of dissident voices. Ethnic cleavages are also exploited by contestants to incite and mobilize unsuspecting masses to pursue their electoral ambitions which can lead to political instability. In many African countries, violence before, during and after elections has become a regrettable norm rather than the exception. The function of transitional justice is to address the legacy of human rights atrocities, political violence and societal harm resulting from prior misrule or violent conflicts, with a view to establishing fair, democratic and inclusive societies. This book interrogates the potential intersection between transitional justice and electoral processes. Specifically, it examines the hypothesis that transitional justice interventions that strive to address historical injustices perpetrated by violence, conflict and entrenched by socio-political impunity, can initiate preventive measures against electoral violence through redress, accountability and institutional reforms. The contributors to this volume have engaged with country case studies from across Africa, while examining the intersection between transitional justice and electoral processes. Hence, this is a timely volume that highlights the uninterrogated nexus between elections, violence and transitional justice in Africa"--

Among the most prominent and significant political and legal developments since the end of the Cold War is the proliferation of mechanisms for addressing the complex challenges of transition from authoritarian rule to human rights-based democratic constitutionalism, particularly with regards to the demands for accountability in relation to conflicts and abuses of the past. Ruti G. Teitel provides a collection of her own essays that embody her evolving reflections on the practice and discourse of transitional justice since her book 'Transitional Justice' published back in 2000