POLI 4510

How do societies move forward after widespread atrocities? What is the role of ‘justice’ in post-conflict reconstruction? What political, normative, and legal priorities are centered, and which are occluded, when communities contend with painful pasts? These are a few of the questions explored in ‘transitional justice’. Transitional justice (TJ) refers to an expansive set of approaches, mechanisms, and processes meant to ‘transition’ societies from autocracy, human rights abuses, or war toward a more just, peaceful, and, often, democratic political and social arrangement. Accountability and anti-impunity measures are often applied alongside truth telling, memorialization, and systems-reforms, including of security sectors and rule-of-law. Together, these approaches are meant to both redress past harms and set up societies for more peaceful futures. Critics, however, argue that TJ often enforces liberal norms, promotes ‘official versions’ of history, and silences perspectives from those speaking from the margins. Through this course, we consider normative, critical, and empirical works on transitional justice to better understand the potentials and limitations of TJ approaches, how these link with human rights, development, and peacebuilding, and what, or whom, might still be left out of these projects.