From Transitional to Transformative Justice

Builds on micro-level critiques of transitional justice to debate a more comprehensive alternative at the level of theory and practice.

Paul Gready (Edited by), Simon Robins (Edited by)

9781107160934, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 21 February 2019

340 pages, 3 b/w illus. 3 tables
23.5 x 15.6 x 2.2 cm, 0.61 kg

'This is a courageous and forward thinking book. In this collection of essays, Gready and Robins with their well-respected colleagues, have tackled the question of the definition of transitional justice; its limitations, goals, and future. By its focus on transitional justice as transformational justice with attention to local agency, process, pluralism, power, and structures of exclusion, the authors challenge the status quo and raise important questions about the understandings of justice and how meaningful change can occur. This book is an important step forward in the development of what is still a nascent field.' Harvey Weinstein, University of California, Berkeley; Co-Editor-in-Chief Emeritus of the International Journal of Transitional Justice

Transitional justice has become the principle lens used by countries emerging from conflict and authoritarian rule to address the legacies of violence and serious human rights abuses. However, as transitional justice practice becomes more institutionalized with support from NGOs and funding from Western donors, questions have been raised about the long-term effectiveness of transitional justice mechanisms. Core elements of the paradigm have been subjected to sustained critique, yet there is much less commentary that goes beyond critique to set out, in a comprehensive fashion, what an alternative approach might look like. This volume discusses one such alternative, transformative justice, and positions this quest in the wider context of ongoing fall-out from the 2008 global economic and political crisis, as well as the failure of social justice advocates to respond with imagination and ambition. Drawing on diverse perspectives, contributors illustrate the wide-ranging purchase of transformative justice at both conceptual and empirical levels.

1. Introduction Paul Gready
Part I. Theories and Contexts: 2. From transitional to transformative justice: a new agenda for practice Simon Robins
3. Predicaments of transformative justice in neoliberal and state-centric world order Richard Falk
4. Rights and transformation Malcolm Langford
Part II. Building Bridges: 5. Measures of non-repetition in transitional justice: the missing link? Naomi Roht-Arriaza
6. Between transition and transformation: legal empowerment as collective reparation Lars Waldorf
7. Transformative gender justice? Fionnuala Ni Aolain
8. Memory and democracy: towards a transformative relationship Elizabeth Jelin
Part III. New(er) Directions: 9. Connecting the egregious and the everyday: addressing impunity for sexual violence in Sri Lanka Chulani Kodikara
10. Participation and transformative justice: reflections on the Brazilian experience Laura Trajber Waisbich and Vera Schattan P. Coelho
11. The restitutional assemblage: the art of transformative justice at the Parramatta Girls Home, Australia Anna Reading
12. Indivisibility as a way of life: transformation in micro-processes of peace in northern Uganda Pamina Firchow and Roger MacGinty
13. HIJOS: breaking social silence with another kind of justice Marina Sitrin
14. Conclusion: towards transformative justice.

Subject Areas: Case law [LNZC], Private international law & conflict of laws [LBG], International human rights law [LBBR], Human rights [JPVH], International relations [JPS]