Transitional Justice as Global Project: Critical Reflections

This article critically reflects on the ways in which the global project of transitional justice is channelled or streamlined in its scope of application. Using the categories of ‘when’, to ‘whom’ and for ‘what’ transitional justice applies, it argues that transitional justice is typically constructed to focus on specific sets of actors for specific sets of crimes. This results in a fairly narrow interpretation of violence within a somewhat artificial time frame and to the exclusion of external actors. The article engages themes of gender, power and structural violence to caution against the narrowing and depoliticisation of transitional justice.