Editorial Note-Transitional Justice Globalized

Abstract

Interest in transitional justice has surged in legal scholarship, in the human rights field generally and most notably in the domain of politics. 'Transitional justice' is an expression I coined in 1991 at the time of the Soviet collapse and on the heels of the late 1980's Latin American transitions to democracy. In proposing this termi-nology, my aim was to account for the self-conscious construction of a distinctive conception of justice associated with periods of radical political change following past oppressive rule. Today we see that an entire field of inquiry, analysis and prac-tice has ensued that reflects scholarly interest; the launching of this journal, the publication of books in a wide variety of related areas such as rule of law and post-conflict studies, international centers and research institutes dedicated to work in this area, interest groups, conferences, domains, web sites, etc. One cannot help but be struck by the humanist breadth of the field, ranging from concerns in law and jurisprudence, to ethics and economics, psychology, criminology and theology. Moreover, these scholarly and practice agendas reflect ongoing developments in the phenomena of transitional justice: justice seeking efforts; ongoing debates regarding issues of accountability versus impunity; the dedication of institutions to prosecution; to truth-seeking and the restoration of the rule of law. To appreciate the road traveled, one might return to the late 1980s and early l990s when the modern day notion of 'transitional justice' crystallized; at that time, transitional justice emerged from and came to be identified with a vital debate over whether to punish predecessor regimes, particularly in light of the aims of democracy and state-building associated with the political transitions of that era. In this context, I was commissioned to write an advisory memorandum for the New York-based Council on Foreign Relations aimed at clarifying a debate over justice which had surfaced at the time of the Latin American transition, and to make recommendations. In the memorandum, I advocated a more expansive view of the question of punishment. I suggested that wherever the criminal justice response was compromised or otherwise limited, there were other ways to respond to the predecessor regime's repressive rule. And such alternatives could develop capacities for advancing the rule of law. Indeed, with the collapse of Communism, and in