´Transitional justice´ has been widely understood as the paradigmatic set of mechanisms, tools and processes necessary to build sustainable peace, bring real democracy, and grant development to so-called ´transitional societies´. This paper will discuss two opposite perspectives on the role that both transitional justice and criminal accountability play in processes aiming to give political recognition to the victims. On the one hand, either transitional justice or criminal prosecutions might be understood as counter-hegemonic devices which are to be used by communities and social movements seeking to obtain justice and to help forging a new (global) democratic political order. For instance, authors like Pureza argue that the adoption of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court in 2002 is to be seen as an achievement of the Global South´s grassroots activism. On the other hand, transitional justice discourse and criminal accountability are considered by some critics as core elements of the so-called ´global governmentality´. By inter-linking international cooperation and development strategies to transitional justice, powerful global governance institutions would reinforce asymmetries of knowledge and power between North and South. The paper will illustrate the complexities of such a debate by addressing a grounding case that allows us to take into account the way in which transnational and Colombian NGOs, and union workers act collaboratively in order to bring human rights violations before the courts in Colombia and Europe.
