Transitional Justice Globalized

Abstract:     
Interest in transitional justice has surged in legal scholarship, in the human rights field generally and most notably in the domain of politics. ‘Transitional justice’ is an expression I coined in 1991 at the time of the Soviet collapse and on the heels of the late 1980’s Latin American transitions to democracy. In proposing this terminology, my aim was to account for the self-conscious construction of a distinctive conception of justice associated with periods of radical political change following past oppressive rule. Today we see that an entire field of inquiry, analysis and practice has ensued that reflects scholarly interest; the launching of this journal, the publication of books in a wide variety of related areas such as rule of law and postconflict studies, international centers and research institutes dedicated to work in this area, interest groups, conferences, domains,web sites, etc. One cannot help but be struck by the humanist breadth of the field, ranging from concerns in law and jurisprudence, to ethics and economics, psychology, criminology and theology.

Number of Pages in PDF File: 5

Keywords: Transitional Justice

working papers series