Judging War, Judging History, Behind Truth and Reconciliation, Stanford University Press, 2010

In a country or community fractured by war and mass violence, who is to determine “justice” and how it should be achieved? Truth commissions, international courts, and financial restitution are some of the various solutions that have been used in recent years. However, these broad efforts at transitional justice may themselves backfire, and sometimes lead to further injustice. Given its own limitations and battered by political pressure from all sides, transitional justice is an imperfect solution. Yet as Pierre Hazan contends in his new book, it constitutes our best hope for liberation from a cycle of violence begetting vengeance and more violence. Judging War, Judging History takes a hard look at the growing use and influence of truth and reconciliation commissions and the increasing importance of transitional justice in contemporary conflict resolution.

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La Paix contre la Justice?, éd. AVE-GRIP, 2010

De l’ex-Yougoslavie au Soudan, du Proche-Orient au Cambodge, la question de l’intervention de la justice interna tionale se pose désormais à chaque conflit, suscitant immanquablement de virulentes controverses. Deux thèses s’affrontent : les uns ne voient dans cette justice qu’une arme utilisée ou délaissée par les gouvernements selon leurs intérêts du moment. D’autres considèrent au contraire la lutte contre l’impunité comme le socle d’un État de droit et d’une société démocratique. La justice est-elle un obstacle ou une condition à la paix ?

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Localizing transitional justice

Interventions and Priorities after Mass Violence

Edited by Rosalind Shaw and Lars Waldorf, with Pierre Hazan

Through war crimes prosecutions, truth commissions, purges of perpetrators, reparations, and memorials, transitional justice practices work under the assumptions that truth telling leads to reconciliation, prosecutions bring closure, and justice prevents the recurrence of violence. More