ABSTRACT
In the aftermath of conflict, victims’ multifaceted demands, echoed by the human rights community, fundamentally assert the universal value of justice. These are the expected demands of punishment, access to basic needs, and acknowledgement of having been wronged. But among victims of atrocities, there is also an understanding of the need for reconciliation and forgiveness, although not for the worst perpetrators, and a strong rejection of amnesties.1 This universal demand to “right the wrongs” calls into question the legitimacy of the new trend within transitional justice practices of coating some of the most difficult questions (e.g. how to address the issue of perpetrators) facing societies in transition with the “dressings” of reconciliation (i.e. framing warlord/perpetrator bargaining as a process of reconciliation, claiming legitimacy from local customs and values). In other words, despite the strides made in institutionalizing transitional justice processes, serious questions about accountability and the power exerted by warlords and elites in political bargaining continue to be too often evaded with superficial measures. These realities of ongoing injustice, as a consequence of the political order that emerges, blur the line between the past and present. The trend of consulting the “local” when designing and implementing a transitional justice package can then be understood as not a matter of objectively infusing static local practices, but of selectively infusing subjective interpretations of the local. The question is, then, whose subjective interpretations of the local – which in any case is dynamic and evolving – are prioritized? What do such tensions reveal about which local is heard and prioritized, and for whom is transitional justice performed? Finally, does situating the local within a preordained transitional justice framework necessarily make it responsive and legitimate in particular contexts?
