Transitional Justice and Peacebuilding after Mass Violence.

Source: (2009) International Journal of Transitional Justice. 3(1):28-48.

Since the end of the Cold War, the international community has become increasingly involved
in peacebuilding and transitional justice after mass violence. This article uses lessons
from practical experience and theories of peacebuilding and transitional justice to develop
a model of transformative justice that supports sustainable peacebuilding. This model is
holistic and transdisciplinary and proposes a focus on civil society participation in the design
and implementation of transitional justice mechanisms. It requires us to rethink our
focus on ‘transition’ as an interim process that links the past and the future, and to shift it
to ‘transformation,’ which implies long-term, sustainable processes embedded in society
and adoption of psychosocial, political and economic, as well as legal, perspectives on justice.
It also involves identifying, understanding and including, where appropriate, the various
cultural approaches to justice that coexist with the dominant western worldview and
practice.Asyncretic approach to reconciling restorative and retributive justice is proposed
as a contribution to developing transformative justice and sustainable peacebuilding. The
development of this transformative justicemodel is informed by field research conducted
in Cambodia, Rwanda, East Timor and Sierra Leone on the views and experiences of conflict
participants in relation to transitional justice and peacebuilding.(author’s abstract)