Shaping Gender Justice: The UN Peacebuilding Commission as a Transitional Justice Expert in Liberia and Sierra Leone

The United Nations Peacebuilding Commission (PBC) was created in 2005 to have oversight of United Nations peacebuilding operations. Transitional justice has emerged as a critical issue on the agenda of the UN PBC and of its country configurations as a means to actively contribute to stabilization efforts, advancement of the rule of law, and the reconstruction of civic trust. This article investigates the construction and production of “gender justice” in UN PBC projects in Sierra Leone and Liberia, drawing on policy documents and interview data. These projects seek to provide rem-edies to past injustices based on the recommendations identified in the Truth and Reconciliation Commissions final reports. I argue then that it is important to understand what is meant by gender justice in the reports and in the projects and to comprehend the kinds of actions that are prescribed and proscribed by the meanings attached to the concept. Specifically, I map out a gender justice discourse that first, (re)produces the United Nations – as representative of ‘the international community’ – as the expert/legitimate knower of transitional justice practices; second, that creates certain categories of beneficiaries/victims needing redress; and third, that treats the communities working on gender justice (women organisations, victims, etc.) as the known objects. This has significant implications for the ways in which women organisations, and the forms of knowledge that these organisations represent, are encountered and engaged in transitional justice practices. Ultimately, this article seeks to understand the sociology of knowledge production that informs and shapes international interventions supporting transitional justice.