Transitional Justice in the Twenty-First Century: Beyond Truth versus Justice Read Online Free PDF Page A

understandable process, one untainted by the perceived unfairness or remoteness of formal legal structures often inherited from a colonial power. They can also play a role, after “horizontal” conflicts involving ethnic‐ or territorially‐based armed groups, in allowing neighbors who have been on different sides of a conflict to re‐engage and to coexist. They can draw on indigenous and traditional ceremonies and authorities, tapping into profound spiritual and world‐visioning symbols that are often non‐Western, based on ideas of community harmony and well‐being. Because of the culture‐specific nature of these processes, it can be hoped that they will resist the tendency, so pronounced in the case of truth commissions, for politicians and negotiators to extrapolate a “formula” that can be applied, with few changes, to any and all situations.
    These local‐level initiatives also give a new, more fulsome meaning to the concept of reconciliation. During the early wave of experiences, reconciliation was conceived of as either a code word for impunity (the Latin American experience) or as an automatic by‐product of other processes, especially of knowing the truth (the South African variant). However, a new understanding of reconciliation as a separate set of phenomena, with its own demands and time‐frames, has slowly emerged. Definitions of reconciliation are still contested and murky, and the individual, community and polity aspects of such processes are still not well understood. Theorists talk about “thick” and “thin” processes, of “coexistence” [18] or “normalcy” [19] as the goals. We, like others, [20] have always preferred the term “social (and moral) reconstruction”; some chapters use reconciliation instead. As Weinstein and Stover write:
     
 
    And so, at a group level, reconciliation involves the reconfiguring of identity, the revisiting of prior social roles, the search for common identifications, agreement about unifying memories if not myths, and the development of collaborative relationships that allow for difference. At the individual level, reconciliation may mean personal reconnection with friends and acquaintances from a former life – a reconnection that raises questions about trust, forgiveness, and attachments in a very intimate way. Societal development necessitates the construction of networks that promote collaboration across social groups. [21]
     
     
    It is easier to visualize these multiple meanings once social reconstruction has been decoupled from other transitional justice processes, with which it is deeply interconnected, and once the community as mediating structure between the individual and the polity has become a key actor in at least some post‐conflict settings. Finally, a more complex temporal dimension exists as well. While transitional justice efforts focus on theperiod shortly after a new government, committed to change, comes to power, it is now clear that ends to transitions cannot be decreed, and that certain aspects of the transitional justice agenda will endure for many years. Transitions may happen in bouts or waves, as new generations come of age and as the international context changes. A long‐term perspective is therefore essential.
    This book brings together case studies that explore one or more of these dimensions. Together, they illustrate the interplay of different functions, levels, mechanisms and goals in the current transitional justice agenda, and they point to some directions for the future. The cases are organized into two parts: Part I involves Truth and justice: Combinations and coordination. Part II centers on Levels of justice: Local, national and international. The overlap between the sections is substantial. The chapter on the East Timorese Community Reconciliation Procedure, for example, is about both combining truth and justice and combining local, national and international levels of justice, while the chapter on