Since the end of the Cold War, the United States has been a key driver of transitional justice. It has provided crucial political backing, as well as technical and financial assistance for trials, truth commissions, and other measures aimed at helping societies address serious human rights violations. Surprisingly, however, scholars have not analyzed closely the role of the US in transitional justice. This book offers the first systematic and cross-cutting account of US foreign policy on transitional justice. It explores the development of US foreign policy on the field from World War I to the present, and provides an in-depth examination of US involvement in measures in Cambodia, Liberia, and Colombia. Annie Bird supports her findings with nearly 200 interviews with key US and foreign government officials, staff of transitional justice measures, and country experts. By "opening the black box" of US foreign policy, the book shows how the diverse and evolving interests of presidential administrations, Congress, the State Department, and other agencies play a major role in shaping US involvement in transitional justice. The book argues that, despite multiple influences, US foreign policy on transitional justice is characterized by a distinctive approach that is symbolic, retributive, and strategic. As the book concludes, this approach has influenced the field as a whole, including the establishment, design, and implementation of transitional justice measures.

Since the 1980s, transitional justice mechanisms have been increasingly applied to account for mass atrocities and grave human rights violations throughout the world. Over time, post-conflict justice practices have expanded across continents and state borders and have fueled the creation of new ideas that go beyond traditional notions of amnesty, retribution, and reconciliation. Gathering work from contributors in international law, political science, sociology, and history, New Critical Spaces in Transitional Justice addresses issues of space and time in transitional justice studies. It explains new trends in responses to post-conflict and post-authoritarian nations and offers original empirical research to help define the field for the future.

In United States Law and Policy on Transitional Justice: Principles, Politics, and Pragmatics, Zachary D. Kaufman explores the U.S. government's support for, or opposition to, certain transitional justice institutions. By first presenting an overview of possible responses to atrocities (such as war crimes tribunals) and then analyzing six historical case studies, Kaufman evaluates why and how the United States has pursued particular transitional justice options since World War II. This book challenges the "legalist" paradigm, which postulates that liberal states pursue war crimes tribunals because their decision-makers hold a principled commitment to the rule of law. Kaufman develops an alternative theory-"prudentialism"-which contends that any state (liberal or illiberal) may support bona fide war crimes tribunals. More generally, prudentialism proposes that states pursue transitional justice options, not out of strict adherence to certain principles, but as a result of a case-specific balancing of politics, pragmatics, and normative beliefs. Kaufman tests these two competing theories through the U.S. experience in six contexts: Germany and Japan after World War II, the 1988 bombing of Pan Am flight 103, the 1990-1991 Iraqi offenses against Kuwaitis, the atrocities in the former Yugoslavia in the 1990s, and the 1994 Rwandan genocide. Kaufman demonstrates that political and pragmatic factors featured as or more prominently in U.S. transitional justice policy than did U.S. government officials' normative beliefs. Kaufman thus concludes that, at least for the United States, prudentialism is superior to legalism as an explanatory theory in transitional justice policymaking.

Dealing with the aftermath of civil conflict or the fall of a repressive government continues to trouble countries throughout the world. Whereas much of the 1990s was occupied with debates concerning the relative merits of criminal prosecutions and truth commissions, by the end of the decade a consensus emerged that this either/or approach was inappropriate and unnecessary. A second generation of transitional justice experiences have stressed both truth and justice and recognize that a single method may inadequately serve societies rebuilding after conflict or dictatorship. Based on studies in ten countries, this book analyzes how some combine multiple institutions, others experiment with community-level initiatives that draw on traditional law and culture, whilst others combine internal actions with transnational or international ones. The authors argue that transitional justice efforts must also consider the challenges to legitimacy and local ownership emerging after external military intervention or occupation.

Legacies of State Violence and Transitional Justice in Latin America presents a nuanced and evidence-based discussion of both the acceptance and co-optation of the transitional justice framework and its potential abuses in the context of the struggle to keep the memory of the past alive and hold perpetrators accountable within Latin America and beyond. The contributors argue that “transitional justice”—understood as both a conceptual framework shaping discourses and a set of political practices—is a Janus-faced paradigm. Historically it has not always advanced but often hindered attempts to achieve historical memory and seek truth and justice. This raises the vital question: what other theoretical frameworks can best capture legacies of human rights crimes? Providing a historical view of current developments in Latin America’s reckoning processes, Legacies of State Violence and Transitional Justice in Latin America reflects on the meaning of the paradigm’s reception: what are the broader political and social consequences of supporting, appropriating, or rejecting the transitional justice paradigm?

Fifty years of violence perpetrated by guerrillas, paramilitaries, and official armed forces in Colombia displaced more than six million people. In 2011, as part of a larger transitional justice process, the Colombian government approved a law that would restore land rights for those who lost their homes during the conflicts. However, this restitution process lacked appropriate provisions for rural women beyond granting them a formal property title. Drawing on decades of research, Elusive Justice demonstrates how these women continue to face numerous adverse circumstances, including geographical isolation, encroaching capitalist enterprises, and a dearth of social and institutional support. Donny Meertens contends that women's advocacy organizations must have a prominent role in overseeing these transitional policies in order to create a more just society. By bringing together the underresearched topic of property repayment and the pursuit of gender justice in peacebuilding, these findings have broad significance elsewhere in the world.

At the century's end, societies all over the world are throwing off the yoke of authoritarian rule and beginning to build democracies. At any such time of radical change, the question arises: should a society punish its ancien regime or let bygones be bygones? Transitional Justice takes this question to a new level with an interdisciplinary approach that challenges the very terms of the contemporary debate. Ruti Teitel explores the recurring dilemma of how regimes should respond to evil rule, arguing against the prevailing view favoring punishment, yet contending that the law nevertheless plays a profound role in periods of radical change. Pursuing a comparative and historical approach, she presents a compelling analysis of constitutional, legislative, and administrative responses to injustice following political upheaval. She proposes a new normative conception of justice--one that is highly politicized--offering glimmerings of the rule of law that, in her view, have become symbols of liberal transition. Its challenge to the prevailing assumptions about transitional periods makes this timely and provocative book essential reading for policymakers and scholars of revolution and new democracies.