What Are the Limits of Blockchain? Considerations on the Use of Blockchain in Transitional Justice Processes

Blockchain technology has the capacity to change how people live, communicate with each other, acquire products, store information, and exchange data. Such a technology—one that is able to perform in different segments and which is being called a general-purpose technology, just like the internet,—can be useful in transitional justice processes. This chapter intends to analyze the use of blockchain technology as a new component within transitional justice processes (see Sect. 3.3.2), understand how blockchain would behave as part of a transitional justice scenario (see generally Sect. 3.3), by considering a state-of-the-art situation (see Sect. 3.3.5). More specifically, the chapter analyzes how blockchain could be incorporated into important aspects of transitional justice: criminal prosecutions, truth commissions, reparations, the restoration of democratic institutions, and reconciliation.