Comparative Transitional Justice Processes

Abstract

The panel aims at comparing processes, mechanisms and/or country cases of transitional justice (TJ). Given TJ's current focus on single cases, the panel targets the relative lack of systematic-comparative research through a comparison of two or more countries that applied the same TJ mechanism in order to address the past (e.g. comparing the conditions, mechanisms or effects of the ad-hoc tribunals in Sierra Leone. Rwanda and The Hague/ICTY) or two or more mechanisms applied in the same country (e.g. post-war Germany: a tribunal/Nuremberg, reparation payments and state apologies). The aim is to systematically learn more about the conditions - domestic and international - under which reconciliation after mass atrocity can be achieved. The panel is also interested in theoretically informed case studies that combine theoretical interest with empirical cases as well as large-n studies. The overall aim is to gain systematic knowledge about the reconciliatory impact or conditions of Transitional Justice mechanisms such as tribunals, truth commissions, reparations, apologies, amnesties and amnesia (forgetting). Comparative cases might help us to gain important answers - scientifically as well as politically - to the question of how to effectively deal with moral wrongs and past misdeeds.

Title	Details
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