Transitional Justice: Dealing with the Past

This chapter examines key debates and practices in the field of transitional justice. It explains the emergence of the field in the 1980s and discusses how transitional justice usually seeks to be restorative justice. It deals with the past for the sake of the future, aiming not simply to mete out punishment but to address past harm using multifaceted means so that overall, societal relationships are repaired sustainably. However, each society emerging from conflict must work out how to respond to the competing demands of justice and peace. This chapter selects a number of key transitional justice areas on which to focus: trials and prosecutions; truth recovery; reparations; apologies and forgiveness. Critiques and new directions in the field are considered.