The Conceptual Foundations of Transitional Justice

Abstract

Many countries have attempted to transition to democracy following conflict or repression, but the basic meaning of transitional justice remains hotly contested. In this book, Colleen Murphy analyzes transitional justiceshowing how it is distinguished from retributive, corrective, and distributive justiceand outlines the ethical standards that societies attempting to democratize should follow. She argues that transitional justice involves the just pursuit of societal transformation. Such transformation requires political reconciliation, which in turn has a complex set of institutional and interpersonal requirements, including the rule of law. She shows how societal transformation is also influenced by the moral claims of victims and the demands of perpetrators, and how justice processes can fail to be just by failing to foster this transformation or by not treating victims and perpetrators fairly. Her book will be accessible and enlightening for philosophers, political and social scientists, policy analysts, and legal and human rights scholars and activists.

Political Trust, Commitment and Responsiveness

“…Stable and flourishing democratic polities are characterised by trust (e.g. Lenard, 2012;Murphy, 2010Murphy, , 2016Walker, 2006) where unstable and conflict-ridden societies are marked by its loss. While less powerful a bond than solidarity or community, trust facilitates commerce, politics and social life more generally: it thought to increase social harmony, allow for compromise, promote order and collective goods without recourse to coercion and expand the scope for individual and social action.…”

“…In addition, some theorists also suggest that there are non-instrumental reasons to value political trust. From the non-instrumental perspective, trust, when reasonable, is an important expression of respect and a commitment to reciprocity in political relationships (Mansbridge, 1999;Murphy, 2010Murphy, , 2016. Its absence is damaging to political relationships for non-instrumental reasons as it forms a constitutive part of those relationships of mutual respect that are said to underpin liberal democracy.…”

Skirts as Flags: Transitional Justice, Gender and Everyday Nationalism in Kosovo

“…Its commission is deeply implicated in the gendered notions of a nation: a woman's body is constructed as a target in a conflict that involves different identity groups and as an object of protection within a nation. Addressing past wrongs in view of repairing relationships after human rights violations across the identity divide is an integral part of post‐conflict recovery (Murphy, , pp. 22–23).…”

“…By focusing on how an artistic intervention can promote justice for victims of wartime rape, we explore an avenue for supporting gender‐just peacebuilding that is an alternative to women's activism, legal responses, and formal gender equality policies. Despite the “context‐specific natures of claims of justice” (Murphy, , p. 6), the case study of Kosovo reflects the typical pattern of gender‐based harm and the challenges of building gender‐just peace after a civil war. Therefore, our findings reveal everyday dynamics of gendering nation building and contribute to the wider understanding of how the redress for wartime sexual violence perpetuates gender‐insensitive peace (Chinkin & Kaldor, ).…”

Transitional Justice Models and Analytic Philosophy: Towards Theory

“…Even though the amount of literature on dealing with the past is substantial, still the majority of it is comprised of the case and comparative studies or general considerations concerning justice in the times of transition. As there are few works that are largely theoretical -notable examples include the works by Kritz (1995), Teitel (2000), Elster (2004), Murphy (2017) and the books edited by Williams, Nagy & Elster (2012) and Buckley-Zistel et al (2014) -there is a need to create a common ground for different types of discourse present in the field and to "rework available material with an attempt to create some theoretical framework for transitional justice" (Czarnota 2013, p. 50). The theorisation of transitional justice is crucial, as it can foster a better understanding of this complex field, enable the more precise use of the employed conceptual notions and provide practitioners with a certain knowledge concerning the paradigms used in the times of transition (Buckley-Zistel et al 2014, p. 3 -4).…”