This book addresses the issue of corruption as a socio-economic rights concern at a national level. Zimbabwe’s widespread corruption inhibited its development in all aspects. It weakened institutions, especially those called upon to arbitrate political and economic contests, leading to potential human rights violations. However, Zimbabwe saw a change of government in November 2017. Due to this, there seemed to be an opening to work towards reform in relation to the anti-corruption architecture. Specifically, the new era provides an opportunity to review how accountability mechanisms (including but not limited to amnesties, truth commissions, institutional reforms and prosecutions) can address corruption as a socio-economic rights violation. As the new government still tries to address competing priorities, many moving parts and various matrixes, this volume in the International Criminal Justice Series provides a timely frame for revisiting the debate and developing the strategic thinking regarding transitional justice options in Zimbabwe. It will be of great interest to practitioners, policy makers, scholars and students in the fields of anti-corruption, socio-economic and human rights, and transitional justice. Prosper Maguchu is Visiting Assistant Professor at the Centre for the Politics of Transnational Law of the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, The Netherlands.

This book provides insight on the effect of political violence and transitional justice in Africa focusing on Zimbabwe and comparing it to Rwanda, Uganda and Mozambique. The case of Zimbabwe is unique since political violence observed in some areas has manifested as contestations for power between members of various political parties. These political contestations have infiltrated family/clan structures at the community level and destroyed the human and social relations of people. Also, the author examines an understanding of how communities in the most polarized and conflict-ridden areas in Africa are addressing their past. The project would appeal to graduate students, academics, researchers and practitioners as it will help them to understand African justice systems and the complex network of relationships shaping justice processes during transitions.

Based on original empirical research, this book explores retributive and gender justice, the potentials and limits of agency, and the correlation of transitional justice and social change through case studies of current dynamics in post-violence countries such Rwanda, South Africa, Cambodia, East Timor, Columbia, Chile and Germany.

Transitional justice mechanisms employed in post-conflict and post-authoritarian contexts have largely focused upon individual violations of a narrow set of civil and political rights, as well as the provision of legal and quasi-legal remedies, such as truth commissions, amnesties and prosecutions. In contrast, this book highlights the significance of structural violence in producing and reproducing rights violations. The book further argues that, in order to remedy structural violations of human rights, there is a need to utilise a different toolkit from that typically employed in transitional justice contexts. The book sets out and applies a definition of transformative justice as expanding upon, and providing an alternative to, transitional justice. Focusing on a comparative study of social movements, nongovernmental organisations and trade unions working on land and housing rights in South Africa, and their network relationships, the book argues that networks of this kind make an important contribution to processes advancing transformative justice.

The expression “transitional justice” emerged at the end of the Cold War, during the transition from dictatorships to democracies, and serves as a central concept in dealing with systemic injustice. This textbook examines the basic principles of transitional justice and explores its core mechanisms, including prosecutions, amnesties, truth commissions, reparations, and vetting the public service. It elaborates the substance and legal framework of these mechanisms and discusses current challenges. The book provides extensive material illustrating a wide variety of transitional justice situations. “This book summarizes the subjects of transitional justice and Vergangenheitsbewältigung systematically and clearly” (Joachim Gauck, German Federal President, 2012-2017).

In Civil Society Narratives of Violence and Shaping the Transitional Justice Agenda in Zimbabwe, Chenai G. Matshaka shows the shaping of the transitional justice agenda in Zimbabwe from a civil society perspective. Based on the understanding that transitional justice approaches are seen through the lenses by which the violence and conflict is understood, Matshaka explores the complexities that arise when particular narratives of violence dominate the agenda. This book contributes to a discussion on how narratives intervene in the trajectory of a transitional justice process of a society in ways that may be beneficial or detrimental to breaking cycles of injustice and domination.

This book engages comprehensively with the dynamics of the transitional justice process in Tunisia and its mechanisms, elaborating lessons for transitional justice practice globally. Grounded in new empirical material as well as a broader awareness of transitional justice, this book provides a thorough assessment of transitional justice in Tunisia. Beyond an overview of the process, it critically engages with key questions such as the extent to which the process articulated global contemporary practice, such as liberal state-building and narrow conceptions of justice as civil-political rights, and to which it generated novel approaches at odds with the mainstream that can inform global practice. The book examines how the transitional justice process in Tunisia has been contextualised and made relevant to the nation’s circumstances and needs. It looks at innovation at the level of formal mechanisms and at the dynamics of mobilisation and contestation surrounding transitional justice both from civil society organisations and victims’ groups. Bringing together analysis from legal scholars, social scientists as well as activists and practitioners, the book challenges the legalism of transitional justice discourse globally, engendering a dialogue between these legal and judicial approaches on the one hand and alternative, more diverse and radical approaches to justice on the other, in order to both deal with the past and to address ongoing injustice. This first book in English to address the dynamics and mechanisms of the transitional justice process in Tunisia will appeal to students and scholars of transitional justice, human rights, peacebuilding, conflict and peace studies, development, and security studies, as well as policymakers and practitioners in these fields, and others with interests in Middle Eastern studies.