ABSTRACT
Since the mid-1990s, transitional justice has become part and parcel of international and domestic responses to mass conflict and repressive rule in Africa. Incorporating a wide range of processes – including war crimes tribunals, truth commissions, reparations programmes, and community-based reintegration rituals – transitional justice is central to efforts to usher African societies from violence and authoritarianism to stability and democracy. Nearly all peace negotiations today involve calls for accountability for perpetrators of atrocities on the basis that dealing with the past is critical to securing the future.
