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Breaking the Cycle of Violence:
The Role of Transitional Justice
DRG Learning Digest | November 2024
Bureau for Democracy, Human Rights, and Governance
A new evidence review commissioned by USAID’s Bureau for Democracy, Human Rights, and Governance (DRG) suggests that Transitional Justice (TJ) approaches have directly and indirectly reduced future atrocities and promoted peace and human rights, by providing opportunities to build stable and inclusive political environments and break cycles of violence. The UN Special Rapporteur on the promotion of truth, justice, reparation, and guarantees of nonrecurrence defines TJ as a “set of measures that can be implemented to redress the legacies of massive human rights abuses, where ‘redressing the legacies’ means, primarily, giving force to human rights norms that were systematically violated.” These measures may include trials, amnesties, truth-telling processes, vetting, reparations, and memorialization. TJ works to prevent atrocities by addressing individual incentives to commit them, reforming institutions to reduce their structural causes, and/or limiting their social causes by changing the beliefs and attitudes of ordinary people.
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Graphic from Judiciaries Worldwide explains, “Although the structure and goals of a transitional justice system are shaped by a nation’s history and recent abuses, some elements are consistent across contexts: affirming the dignity of all persons; recognizing and redressing violations; and making efforts to prevent reoccurrence.”
This edition examines the following topics that were highlighted in the literature review:
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Evidence shows that TJ can prevent atrocities using different mechanisms to address individuals' incentives to commit atrocities, including trials and amnesties. Neither on its own addresses all aspects of atrocity prevention, but each is valuable in advancing different goals. They can be used in concert in highly complex conflicts, depending on the context.
Global trends in TJ figure, from “Behind Bars and Bargains: New Findings on Transitional Justice in Emerging Democracies.” The numbers are based on yearly counts of TJ mechanisms from the Transitional Justice Research Collaborative Database.
Trials that hold individual perpetrators accountable for atrocities can deter future atrocities by raising their cost. A growing body of evidence supports the deterrent effect of trials, though this is not true uniformly and it is not clear what factors contribute to the deterrent effect. For example, multiple studies have found direct International Criminal Court (ICC) actions to be effective at reducing violence against civilians in contexts as distinct as Libya and across sub-Saharan Africa. Further, the ICC may be more effective in reducing violence by rebel groups, as compared to state actors. Advocates can support trials directly or indirectly, for instance by gathering evidence and supporting rule of law. However, while trials strengthen human rights protections and democracy, but they can also prolong conflict by eliminating the possibility of exile as a means to end conflict and making combatants generally less willing to negotiate.
In contrast, amnesties can provide positive incentives for perpetrators to stop engaging in violence by promoting peace and stability. Amnesties seem to shorten conflict while they have no positive effect on human rights or democracy. By promoting peace, they can help to improve the conditions that contributed to making atrocity possible in the first place, reducing the recurrence of conflict. Amnesties can be applied strategically, such as being offered only for non-atrocity crimes and through plea bargains. They appear to be most effective when they are part of a formal peace process and when they do not include atrocity crimes.
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In addition to targeting the incentives of individuals who commit the specific crimes of atrocity, some interventions address the institutions that determine how decisions are made and by whom. Although there is little research on the effectiveness of TJ interventions that target institutions directly, TJ can influence these structures in a variety of ways. For example, TJ interventions can strengthen democracies by reducing corruption and improving electoral integrity. Stronger democracies in turn are associated with reduced likelihood of atrocities.
TJ interventions can address institutions, for instance, through security sector reform or vetting processes that purge those associated with previous atrocities or other human rights abuses. While this type of intervention has little evidence of directly affecting human rights outcomes; there is stronger evidence that this type of intervention has a positive effect on democratic outcomes, such as reducing corruption, limiting legal forms of electoral manipulation, and improving citizen trust. Truth-telling is another TJ intervention that can address institutions. Like vetting and institutional reform, there is little research on the influence of truth-telling on human rights outcomes, but there is some evidence that the onset of a targeted mass killing decreases during and immediately after truth commissions. There are mixed findings on the effect of truth-telling on intermediate democratic outcomes; while truth-telling commissions do not appear to have any negative effect on democratic outcomes, there is only weak evidence of a positive effect. The research is highly contradictory and does not identify indicators of where a truth-telling process might be more effective. Some studies, however, have found a positive association with improving democratization and decreasing corruption.
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USAID’s Reconciliation and Reintegration programs provided trauma counseling and space for dialogue that allowed Eliane to forgive Alexis (both pictured) for killing her family members. They now have rebuilt their lives in the same community. Photo: Carol Storey / USAID.
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TJ interventions can seek to prevent atrocity by targeting social causes. Cleavages in society, whether due to ethnic, religious, or other differences, can produce cycles of violence and retribution that contribute to atrocities. Changing attitudes about these differences, as well as norms and behaviors around those attitudes, can contribute to prevention by creating a culture of peace. Through social healing and reconciliation, they can reduce these underlying divisions. The research on the link between TJ approaches and social change contributing to preventing atrocity shows that well-designed TJ interventions can build trust and social support for democracy and democratic behaviors and contribute to forgiveness and tolerance. Importantly, however, TJ interventions have also caused psychological harm and exacerbated or created divisions in some cases.
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Image from the USAID/Libya’s Reconciliation and Justice Activity, which “ensures that victims, citizens, communities, and civil society organizations have the knowledge and opportunities to meaningfully engage in reconciliation initiatives and transitional justice processes.” Photo: American Bar Association.
Reconciliation in a divided society is notoriously difficult to measure. Instead researchers have found that TJ approaches have a positive effect on citizen trust, forgiveness, and willingness to coexist. Truth revelation processes within communities, such as the Fambul Tok process in Sierra Leone in which communities gather around bonfires and victims share experiences and perpetrators ask for forgiveness, can have a positive effect on reconciliation. After an atrocity has occurred, citizens — particularly those who were victimized — want truth and acknowledgment and recognition of the harm caused. However, there is also evidence that these interventions can cause psychological harm to individuals, even as they improve community cohesion. Finally, memorialization can provide another means by which to change beliefs about democracy and human rights. It can contribute to the important acknowledgement and recognition of harm and ensures the voices of victims play a prominent role in the collective memory of the event.
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Further Assistance
USAID’s DRG Human Rights and the joint DRG Bureau and Bureau for Conflict Prevention and Stabilization-led Atrocity Prevention Core Team team is available to provide technical assistance to USAID Missions on topics including transitional justice and atrocity prevention and response. For additional information or support, please contact drg.humanrights@usaid.gov and/or apcore@usaid.gov.
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DRG Learning Digest, a newsletter from the DRG Evidence and Learning team, is a series of latest learning, evaluation, and research in Democracy, Human Rights, and Governance. Views expressed in non-USAID publications linked in this Digest do not necessarily represent the views of the United States Agency for International Development or the United States Government.
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