The Geometry of Transitional Justice: Choices of Institutional Design

Abstract

Recent years have seen a proliferation of forms of transitional justice, ranging from pure truth and reconciliation formulas to various integrated approaches, combining international or internationalized trials with alternative forms of justice. Many of these phenomena have been examined in individual case studies. However, few attempts have been made to put the various pieces of the puzzle together and to analyze the merits and pitfalls of different institutional choices of transitional justice. This essay seeks to fill this shortcoming. It looks at different institutional designs of transitional justice from a comparative and impact-based perspective. It tries to identify some of the contextual parameters which may contribute to the success or failure of specific formulas of institutional design. Moreover, this contribution seeks to establish that international and domestic models of justice are not contradictory, but interdependent forces in the process of sustainable peacemaking, in areas such as criminal trials, victim's protection and reparation. It argues that transitional justice requires pluralist and complementary approaches, combining parallel mechanisms at the domestic and the international level, in order to succeed in practice, especially after the coming into operation of the International Criminal Court.