LAW 5703: Post-Conflict & Transitional Justice Seminar - 2174

This seminar will introduce students to the field of post-conflict or transitional justice. Transitional justice as a field refers to a wide range of approaches that societies undertake to reckon with legacies of widespread or systematic human rights abuse as they move from a period of violent conflict or oppression towards peace, democracy, the rule of law, and respect for individual and collective rights. In theory and practice, the aim of transitional justice mechanisms is to confront legacies of abuse and repression in a broad and holistic manner that encompasses retributive justice, restorative justice, social justice, and economic justice. As a field, transitional justice focuses on several approaches to confronting the past, including: prosecutions, truth-seeking mechanisms, reparations, reform of abusive institutions and lustration. The seminar will also explore several crosscutting issues, including the role of amnesty during transition, initiatives aimed at engendering reconciliation as well as other approaches to addressing human rights violations such as distributive justice strategies.