AFTER THINGS FALL APART: CHALLENGES
FOR TRANSITIONAL JUSTICE FUTURES
Fionnuala Ní Aoláin*
Abstract
This article addresses the expansions, constrictions and pressures being faced by the
transitional justice field. I affirm the important hybridity and interdisciplinary
dimensions of transitional justice, but also underscore the extent to which the field
remains firmly rooted in and attached to legal practice. I fix my analysis on three
particular tensions in transitional justice. First, defining the sites of transitional justice,
worries about the breadth of the field and anxieties that transitional justice practice is
being over-expanded and thereby robbed of its core content and moral claims. Second,
growing awareness of fragmentation of the field of transitional justice – illustrated by a
plethora of ‘soft law’ norms emerging from a range of international and regional actors,
and the implications for accountability and legal traction. Finally, ongoing calls for
holistic approaches to address transitional societies and the weaknesses of insufficient or
incomplete transitional justice for conflict and repression in emergent societies.
Keywords: Transitional Justice; legal change; fragmentation; democratic transitions;
post-transitional justice; intervention; peacemaking
Transitional justice discourse and practice is generally accepted as having its
foundations located in the theoretical, policy and practical implications of dealing
with past human rights violations in societies that have experienced either repressive
politics or violent conflict. Transitional justice describes the interim legal and political
arrangements that come to the fore as states (and emerging/new states) transition
from one legal status to another, or undertake profound internal rearrangement to
facilitate new political and constitutional imperatives. In particular, it refers to
transitions from situations of endemic human rights violations towards an
environment characterised by democracy and respect for rights. Transitional justice
* Professor of Law, Transitional Justice Institute, Ulster University & Robina Chair in Law, Public
Policy and Society, University of Minnesota Law School. My thanks to Megan Manion for research
assistance.
Contact Fionnuala Ni Aolain at niaol002@umn.edu.
11 HR&ILD 1 (2017) 23