This is the subject which scholars call "transitional justice." The key question is how one should deal with perpetrators of war crimes and other human rights abuses after the end of a war or after regime change in order to get beyond the past and move into the future. Some people advocate war crimes tribunals to bring the guilty to justice. Others believe that the effort to punish perpetrators is one of the things that causes such conflicts to last as long as they do — because the perpetrators can't afford to reach a peace agreement for fear of being prosecuted for war crimes. Some advocate the use of truth commissions as a "softer" alternative for that reason, and also because (some argue) they allow for more reconciliation between the parties than tribunals do. Other approaches, such as various forms of dialogues, have also been used to bring about reconciliation, but there is still a lot to be learned about how this transition can be made effectively without prolonging the conflict or instilling humiliation or retribution that will plant the seeds for the next conflict.

This is an area that has been studied quite a bit, but the experience overall isn't deep, and the findings are ambiguous. All the approaches currently being used have some benefits and a host of problems as well, as is illustrated in the following articles:

Beyond Intractability Articles

• Introductory Article on Transitional Justice This article is actually more of a "portal" that links to may other individual articles as well as outside resources on various transitional justice institutions.
• Truth Commissions are official groups endowed with the authority to extensively investigate the human rights abuses and war crimes committed in a specific country or region during a specified time period. They may take actions to report their findings to the public, compensate victims and families for harm done and/or issue recommendations so that similar situations do not occur again.
• Criminal Tribunals These are tribunals designed to prosecute war crimes such as genocide, torture, and rape. Such tribunals are becoming increasingly common and are used instead of or in conjunction with truth commissions to try to move beyond the violence of many ethnic conflicts and allow the society to build peace.
• Trauma Healing When conflict results in physical or psychological abuse, people can become traumatized. Trauma causes victims to continue to suffer, to be almost frozen in time.This essay details the effects of trauma and offer suggestions for healing.
• Apology and Forgiveness These are two sides of the mutli-faceted "diamond" of reconciliation. Both are necessary for true reconciliation to take place.
• Amnesty Many argue that amnesty can allow societies to wipe the slate clean after war crimes or other human rights abuses, to put the past behind them in favor of the future. Others argue, that this condones the perpetrators' actions and encourages such behavior in the future.
• Reconciliation Reconciliation is seen as the ultimate goal of peacebuilding, in which parties re-establish relationships and attempt to move beyond the past.

Beyond Intractability Book Summaries:

• After the TRC: Reflections on Truth and Reconciliation in South Africa
  Wilmot James and Linda van de Vijer
  Looking back at South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC), this collection has two primary goals. First, it aims to provide an assessment of the TRC experience. Second, it asks where South Africa should go from here.
• The Healing of Nations: The Promise and Limits of Political Forgiveness
  Mark Amstutz
  The restoration of communal bonds and the promotion of national reconciliation can only occur when individuals and groups are willing to forgive offenders, at least on the political level. Political forgiveness techniques — such as truth commissions — are analyzed using empirical examples.
• Apologia Politica: States and their Apologies by Proxy
  Girma Negash
  Negash examines state apology in depth, identifying the components necessary for a successful collective apology. He makes a particular distinction between apologies aimed at "mending" and apologies aimed at "healing."
• Transitional Justice
  Ruti G. Teitel
  Transitional justice offers a way to reconstitute the collective — across potentially divisive racial, ethnic, and religious lines. Mechanisms which promote such justice in post-conflict societies are explored.
• Closing the Books: Transitional Justice in Historical Perspective
  Jon Elster
  Transitional justice varies along a scale, with pure legal justice and pure political justice constituting the poles. Closing the Books uses historical examples in an attempt to understand the sources of variation.
• Confronting Past Human Rights Violations: Justice vs. Peace in Times of Transition
  Chandra Lekha Sriram
  Because pursuing justice risks destabilization as some actors are threatened with punishment, many argue that justice must be foregone in the interest of peace. Sriram rejects this argument, suggesting instead that the interaction between justice and peace is continuous and that justice need not be completely rejected in order to establish peace.
• Universal Jurisdiction: National Courts and the Prosecution of Serious Crimes under International Law
  Stephen Macedo, ed.
  Closely related to the concept of universal human rights, universal jurisdiction refers to the idea that certain crimes are so heinous and universally abhorred that a state is entitled to undertake legal proceedings without regard to where the crime was committed. The implications of this concept are explored.
• Looking Back, Reaching Forward: Reflections on the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of South Africa
  Charles Villa-Vicencio and Wilhelm Verwoerd, eds.
  There is a lot of disagreement over the extent to which South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) was a success. This debate is hashed out in the pages of this book.
• Unspeakable Truths: Confronting State Terror and Atrocity
  Priscilla B. Hayner
  There is growing recognition of the need to address the past in post-conflict societies. Unspeakable Truths examines why this is important, and contrasts different transitional justice mechanisms with a primary focus on truth commissions.
• Truth and Reconciliation in South Africa: Miracle or Model?
  Lyn S. Graybill
  Graybill offers a summation of the TRC followed by a series of questions about the success (or lack thereof) and the universality (or lack thereof) of the TRC, most of which she declines to answer definitively.



• Dilemmas of Justice in Eastern Europe's Democratic Transitions
  Noel Calhoun
  Using the cases of East Germany, Poland, and Russia, Calhoun examines the role of liberal democratic ideas in shaping how countries confront past violations of human rights. Calhoun argues that liberal democratic ideology tends to produce truth and justice strategies, rather than violent retribution or collective amnesia.
• Final Acts: A Guide to Preserving the Records of Truth Commissions
  Trudy Huskamp Peterson
  If a truth commission is to effectively serve the purpose of overcoming denial and providing an authoritative history, it must remain accessible well into the future. This means preserving physical records, and making them readily accessible. These two activities are the focus of Final Acts
• Post-Conflict Justice, International and Comparative Criminal Law Series
  M. Cherif Bassiouni, ed.
  Holding parties accountable for past human rights violations is a difficult and complicated process. Bassiouni helps to simplify this process by providing a number of guidelines to help achieve accountability and eliminate impunity.
• Radical Evil on Trial
  Carlos Santiago Nino
  Using Argentina as an example, Nino examines how the punishment of human rights violators affects the establishment of new democracies. He concludes that in some cases, such punishment can do more harm than good, and that international norms of justice should be more clearly established.
• The South African Truth Commission
  Kenneth Christie
  Using interviews with political leaders, observers, and those that came before the commission, Christie suggests that the TRC was successful in making denial difficult by bringing details of the past to light, and in providing some relief for victims. Some of the limitations of the TRC are also discussed.
• Dilemmas of Justice in Eastern Europe's Democratic Transitions
  Noel Calhoun
  Using the cases of East Germany, Poland, and Russia, Calhoun examines the role of liberal democratic ideas in shaping how countries confront the past violations of human rights. Calhoun argues that liberal democratic ideology tends to produce truth and justice strategies rather than violent retribution or collective amnesia.
• Historical Injustice and Democratic Transition in Eastern Asia and Northern Europe: Ghosts at the Table of Democracy
  Christie, Kenneth, and Robert Cribb, eds.
  This work emerged from a conference in Denmark, and explores the legacy of past trauma in countries that do not receive much attention in transitional justice literature.
• Internationalized Criminal Courts and Tribunals: Sierra Leone, East Timor, Kosovo, and Cambodia
  Cesare Romano, Andrâe Nollkaemper, and Jann K. Kleffner
  International Conflict Resolution is an analysis of negotiation and de-escalation in international conflict, using de-escalation efforts in the Arab-Israeli and US-Soviet conflicts as empirical examples.
• The Legacy of Human Rights Violations in the Southern Cone: Argentina, Chile, and Uruguay
  Luis Roniger and Mario Szanjder>
  Focusing on the Southern Cone of South America, this book is a comparative study of the way past human rights violations have been dealt with. It concludes that a collective memory of past violations has not been established in the Southern Cone.
• The Politics of Memory: Truth, Healing, and Social Justice
  Ifi Amadiume and Abdullahi An-Na'im, eds
  Social justice can be both a means to, and a result of, a healing and reconciliation process. The Politics of Memory provides an ‘African-centered’ perspective on the dynamics between social justice and the process of rebuilding communities after violent conflict.
• The Politics of Truth and Reconciliation in South Africa: Legitimizing the Post-Apartheid State
  Richard A. Wilson
  Wilson argues that because the TRC granted amnesty to human rights abusers, the rule of law was undermined. He goes on to suggest that truth commissions should stick to building new collective memories, and leave the rest to institutions of civil society.
• The Provocations of Amnesty : Memory, Justice, and Impunity
  Charles Villa-Vicencio and Erik Doxtader, eds.
  Amnesty is a hotly contested issue in truth and reconciliation commissions. This book explores the ethics and the likely consequences of amnesty.
• Justice in a Time of War: The True Story Behind the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia
  Pierre Hazan
  Hazan examines the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY), suggesting that it does not have a strong voice in the Balkans, nor is it well regarded by the population.
• After the TRC: Reflections on Truth and Reconciliation in South Africa
  Wilmot James and Linda van de Vijer
  Looking back at South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC), this collection has two primary goals. First, it aims to provide an assessment of the TRC experience. Second, it asks where South Africa should go from here.
• The South African Truth Commission
  Kenneth Christie
  Using interviews with political leaders, observers, and those that came before the commission Christie suggests that the TRC was successful in making denial difficult by bring details of the past to light, and in providing some relief for victims. Some of the limitations of the TRC are also discussed.
• Dilemmas of Justice in Eastern Europe's Democratic Transitions
  Noel Calhoun
  Using the cases of East Germany, Poland, and Russia, Calhoun examines the role of liberal democratic ideas in shaping how countries confront the past violations of human rights. Calhoun argues that liberal democratic ideology tends to produce truth and justice strategies rather than violent retribution or collective amnesia.
• My Neighbor, My Enemy: Justice and Community in the Aftermath of Ethnic Cleansing.
  Stover, Eric, and Harvey M. Weinstein, eds.
  Although there is widespread support for various mechanisms designed to address past human rights abuses, there is little empirical data as to the actual impacts of these mechanisms. Using the examples of Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia, this book concludes that these types of tools have little positive effect on reconciliation, and suggests an "ecological" model of social reconstruction instead.
• Overcoming Apartheid: Can Truth Reconcile a Divided Nation?
  James L. Gibson
  The truth and reconciliation process has had mixed results thus far. While such processes have had little positive effect in many instances, Gibson suggests that in South Africa the TRC was able to moderate views of race, thereby aiding reconciliation.
• Political Forgiveness: Lessons from South Africa
  Russell Daye
  Political forgiveness is often a necessary pre-condition for transcending the negative effects of a conflict. Daye discusses political forgiveness in general, developing a framework for success and then applies this framework to the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission.
• Politics and the Past: On Repairing Historical Injustices
  John Torpey, ed.
  Reparations are generally quite controversial. Politics and the Past analyses the effectiveness and implications of reparations.

Other Resources of Interest:

• Narratives and Storytelling
  Stories have been vital to all cultures throughout history. Recently, they have been purposefully employed as tools to promote empathy between adversaries and to help people heal from past trauma.
• Graessner, S., ed. At the Side of Torture Survivors: Treating a Terrible Assault on Human Dignity. Baltimore, MD: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2001.
  Publisher's Description
• Goldman, J.S. & Coleman, P.T. How Humiliation Fuels Intractable Conflict: The Effects of Emotional Roles on Recall and Reactions to Conflictual Encounters. New York, NY: International Center for Cooperation & Conflict Resolution, Teachers College, Columbia University, 2005.
  Author's Description
• Noel, Lise. Intolerance: A General Survey. Montreal: McGill-Queen's University Press, 1994.
  Consortium Abstract
• Mario Mikulincer and Phillip R. Shaver, "Attachment Security, Compassion, and Altruism," in Current Directions in Psychological Science, (14:1, 2005), pp. 34-38.
  Author's Description
• Elizabeth A. Gassin, Robert D.Enright, and Jeanette A.Knutson. 2005. "Bringing Peace to the Central City: Forgiveness Education in Milwaukee." In Theory Into Practice, Vol. 44, No. 4: pages 319-328.
  Consortium Article Abstract
• Haggai Kupermintz and Gavriel Salomon. 2005. "Lessons to Be Learned From Research on Peace Education in the Context of Intractable Conflict." In Theory Into Practice, Vol. 44, No. 4: pages 293-302.
  Author's Description
• Lalloo, Kiran. "Arenas of Contested Citizenship: Housing Policy in South Africa." Habitat International, vol. 23 issue 1 (March 1998): 35-47.
  Author's Description
• Lindner, Evelin G. "Healing the Cycles of Humiliation: How to Attend to the Emotional Aspects of Unsolvable Conflicts and the Use of Humiliation Entrepreneurship." Peace and Conflict: Journal of Peace Psychology, vol. 8, no. 2 (2002): 125-138.
  Author's Description
• Unite or Divide? The Challenges of Teaching History in Societies Emerging from Violent Conflict
• Transitional Justice
  Conflict Publishers | Conflict News | Google Scholar
• Truth reconciliation
  Conflict Publishers | Conflict News | Google Scholar

Something missing? Send us your suggestions.

• Political Forgiveness
  Conflict Publishers | Conflict News | Google Scholar