Transitional Justice: Global Mechanisms and Local Realities after Genocide and Mass Violence

Introduction: Toward an Anthropology of Transitional Justice

1 /////////////~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Introduction Toward an Anthropology of Transitional Justice ALEX ANDER LABAN HINTON How do societies come to terms with the aftermath of genocide and mass violence? And how might the international community contribute to this process? In recent years, transitional justice mechanisms such as tribunals and truth commissions have emerged as a favored means of redress, one that is now the focus of international workshops, academic conferences, UN reports, foreign relations and diplomacy, nongovernmental organizations, and scholarly research. This volume argues that, however well-intentioned, transitional justice needs to more deeply grapple with the messiness of global and transnational involvements and the local, on-the-ground realities with which they intersect , complexities that are too often glossed over, due in part to the privileging of a cluster of liberal normative goods, such as the rule of law, peace, reconciliation, civil society, human rights, combating impunity, and justice. Specifically, this intersection of justice and locality, or what might be called “local justice,” is concerned with the ways in which justice is experienced , perceived, conceptualized, transacted, and produced in various localities, ranging from village-level interactions between former victims and perpetrators, to offices of nongovernmental organizations, to the courtrooms of international tribunals.1 Because justice is so frequently assumed to be something almost transcendent and universal, epitomized by due process, legal rights, and international norms, it is critical to explore how a sense of justice (or the lack thereof) after genocide and mass violence is always negotiated within particular localities enmeshed with global and transnational flows of ideas and ideologies, legal mechanisms, human rights regimes, capital, electronic media, and so forth (Appadurai 1996; see also Stover 2005; Stover and Weinstein 2004; Wilson 2001). The nexus of justice and locality is therefore 2 A LEX A NDER L A BA N HINTON frequently one of “friction” (Tsing 2005), the dynamic intersection of a varying combination of local, regional, national, transnational, and global processes in particular contexts. This book, then, seeks to explore the local justice dynamic by considering what justice means and how it is negotiated in different localities where transitional justice efforts are under way (or related rhetorics and processes are in play) after genocide and mass atrocity. In doing so, it seeks to envision what an anthropology of transitional justice might look like. After examining the emergence of transitional justice, this introduction explores three dimensions of the anthropology of transitional justice: the messiness of these initiatives (“transitional frictions”), the ways in which transitional justice is negotiated and understood on the ground (“justice in the vernacular”), and how transitional justice initiatives foreground and background different groups and perspectives (“voice, truth, and narrative”). Transitional Justice The field of transitional justice is relatively new, emerging in the wake of the cold war amid euphoria about the “new world order” and the possibilities of humanitarianism, human rights, and international law. Indeed, the term “transitional justice” is thought to have been coined as recently as 1991 (Teitel 2008, 1; see also Arthur 2009). Transitional justice is often defined as the process of redressing past wrongs committed in states shifting from a violent, authoritarian past toward a more liberal, democratic future— though more recently the term has been defined in a broader manner (for example, a more general “response to systematic or widespread violations of human rights”)2 and extended to encompass a larger set of outcomes, such as advancing development and social justice (Mani 2008). Transitional justice is strongly informed by at least three key streams of experience (Neier 1999; Teitel 2003). One key current was the post–World War II attempt to deal with the atrocities committed by Nazi Germany and Japan (Bass 2000; Teitel 2003). While some people, including Winston Churchill, argued that the crimes of the former leaders of these regimes were so egregious and obvious that they should be summarily executed, others argued that it was important to “stay the hand of vengeance” and try them in a court of law (Moghalu 2008, 30). The latter side won out, resulting in the creation of two international tribunals, the 1945 International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg (Nuremberg Trials) and the 1946 International Military Tribunal for the Far East (Tokyo War Crimes Trials). While these tribunals were momentous in a number of respects, they were particularly significant for expanding the applicability of international law to individuals (as opposed to only states) and for INT RODUCT...