Challenging Transitional Justice

Abstract

Sixty-six years after the Nuremburg trials, the practice and study of transitional justice is well established. To robustly engage with current debates in the field, this introduction to the edited collection 'Critical Perspectives in Transitional Justice', stresses disagreement rather than consensus. It explores the nature of divisions within the field of transitional justice and subjects these to close scrutiny. It lays out four principal concerns with current trends in transitional justice: the under-theorisation of the field; its disconnect from core academic disciplines; its tendency toward advocacy rather than analysis; and its emphasis on technical institutional responses without clear articulations of their objectives and discusses how the chapters included in this collection respond to these concerns.

Keywords: Transitional justice; critical perspectives