Oxford Handbook of Transitional Justice

by Meierhenrich, Jens; Hinton, Alexander Laban; Douglas, Lawrence

• ISBN13: 9780198704355
• ISBN10: 0198704356
• eBook ISBN(s): 9780191009587
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2026-02-13
• Publisher: Oxford University Press

Summary

The Oxford Handbook of Transitional Justice is an authoritative guide to the rapidly growing domain of transitional justice-the practices and processes of reckoning pursued in the aftermath of historic injustice. Since the neologism's coining in the late 1990s, “transitional justice” has become one of the 21st century's most influential practices of international humanitarianism. However, transitional justice projects often conceal the very violence they are intended to address - or even inflict further violence on victims of atrocities.

Across 48 genre-bending chapters, the Handbook explores, articulates, and advances a multifaceted critique of transitional justice. Ranging innovatively across space and time, it interrogates the nature and legacies of the “justice cascade” that the prosecution of international crimes is said to have inspired. An interdisciplinary cast of leading scholars questions the meaning and efficacy of transitional justice's modalities, which range from archives to courts; from memorials to reparations. In so doing, this volume's authors critically challenge the panglossian orthodoxies that have accumulated and ossified around efforts to come to terms with violent pasts, from colonialism to genocide. This global endeavor is not one of tear-down, however. Rather, it points toward a reimagined project that is more clear-eyed about the promises of transitional justice-and its inherent limits.

A definitive work on the subject, The Oxford Handbook of Transitional Justice is essential reading for students, scholars, and practitioners interested in practices of reckoning.

Author Biography

Jens Meierhenrich, London School of Economics,Alexander Laban Hinton, Rutgers University,Lawrence Douglas, Amherst College

Table of Contents

IINTRODUCTION1. The Critique of Transitional Justice, Jens Meierhenrich, Alexander Laban Hinton, and Lawrence DouglasIITELEOLOGIES, OR: THE ENDS OF TRANSITIONAL JUSTICE2. What We Talk About When We Talk about Transitional Justice—And What We Don’t, Claire Moon3. The Hopes of Transitional Justice, Adam Sitze4. Reparative Governmentalities in Transitional Justice, Andrew Woolford5. A Problem of Utopia: Human Rights and Transitional Justice, Makau W. Mutua6. Mourning in Transitional Justice, Alexander Keller Hirsch7. Memory/Remedy: The Soothsayer's Practice, Chigbo Arthur Anyaduba, Benjamin Maiangwa8. Peace and Transitional Justice, Oliver P. RichmondIIITECHNOLOGIES, OR: THE MEANS OF TRANSITIONAL JUSTICE9. What Quantitative and Formal Methods Teach Us about Transitional Justice, Milena Ang, Monika Nalepa10. The Justice of Reparations, John Torpey11. Apologies and Transitional Justice: Myths, Complexities, and Warnings, Nick Smith12. Rethinking Transitional Justice with the Insights of Political Sociology, Jamie Rowen13. Making Visible: Mathematics and Transitional Justice, Diane M. Nelson14. Technoscientific Truth-Making: Forensic Science and the Politics of Recognition, Sarah Wagner, Maria Alexandra Lopez-Cerquera, Sarah L. Richardson15. Media and Transitional Justice, Joachim J. Savelsberg16. The Facts of Transitional Justice, Nancy Amoury Combs17. The International Entrepreneurs of Transitional Justice, Jelena Subotic18. The Data of Transitional Justice, Geoff Dancy, Kathryn SikkinkIVTOPOGRAPHIES, OR: THE SITES OF TRANSITIONAL JUSTICE19. Courts in the United States: A Template and a Site of Transitional Justice, Collapsing as a Model, Judith Resnik20. Transitional Justice of the Grassroots: A Comparative Survey, Anuradha Chakravarty21. Local/e, Nigel Eltringham22. Managerialism at the United Nations, Leena Grover23. Performance Matters in Transitional Times, Catherine Cole24. Gendering Transitional Justice, Marie Berry, Milli Lake, Jemima Ackah-Arthur25. Archiving Justice, Henry Redwood26. What Difference Do Museums Make?, Laia Balcells, Elsa Voytas27. The Affects of Transitional Justice, Jonas Bens28. The Aesthetics of Transitional Justice, Carrol Clarkson29. History Textbooks and Transitional Justice, Tamara Trošt30. The Business of Transitional Justice, Leigh A. Payne, Gabriel Pereira, Laura Bernal-BermúdezVTRAJECTORIES, OR: THE DYNAMICS OF TRANSITIONAL JUSTICE31. Just Transitions, Devin O. Pendas32. Haunted by Three Spirits: The Afterlives of Past, Present, and Future Transitional Justice, Marcos Zunino33. Contesting Histories: The Historical Accounts of Transitional Justice Institutions, Richard Ashby Wilson, Vladimir Petrovi?34. Settler Colonial States and Transitional Justice, Chris Cunneen35. Silence and Transitional Justice, Marita Eastmond, Johanna Mannergren Selimovic36. Patterns of Injustice, Cyanne E. Loyle, Christian Davenport37. Resistance and Transitional Justice, Briony Jones, Julie Bernath38. Heteronormativity and Transitional Justice, Pascha Bueno-Hansen39. From Transitional to Transformative Justice, Paul GreadyVITEMPORALITIES, OR: THE HISTORIES OF TRANSITIONAL JUSTICE40. Transitional Justice Temporalities, Zinaida Miller41. Transitional Justice in the Ancient World, Adriaan Lanni42. Was There Transitional Justice in the Medieval World?, Jenny Benham, Jamie Smith43. Genealogies of Transitional Justice, Kim Christian Priemel44. Transitional Justice in African Contexts through the Institutionalization of Emotional Affects, Kamari Maxine Clarke45. Transitional Justice in Latin America, Naomi Roht-Arriaza46. Orientalism and the Transitional Justice Imaginary in Asia, Alexander Laban Hinton47. Transitional Justice in Europe, Annette Weinke48. Transitional Justice in the Arab Region: An Intellectual and Practical Inquiry, Noha Aboueldahab