Transitional justice is about the most difficult dilemmas facing a society during some of the most troubling and challenging moments of its history. It is applied when a country needs to examine its darkest moments and find a way forward to build a better future and create a more inclusive society.

In April, I participated in the Skoll 2021 World Forum panel “Against Forgetting: Historical Memory and Just Reconciliation.” The event was a call to preserve historical memory and truth as a means to address collective trauma. It was also a reminder of the importance of engaging in processes of transitional justice that advance accountability, build sustainable peace, prevent violence, and achieve reconciliation. Panelists discussed the Holocaust in Europe as well as atrocities in Rwanda, Sierra Leone, the former Yugoslavia, and many other countries including the United States.

While some people may feel uncomfortable or take issue with the idea of lumping the United States alongside these countries in the same category, the truth is that most countries around the world have had periods of devastating violence in their history and still carry with them legacies of massive human rights violations.

Transitional justice becomes relevant when a country has experienced profound criminality, when the vast scale of human rights violations has shattered the social contract between citizens and the state.

The dilemmas that face society as it confronts its past are social, political, legal, judicial, and ethical. And the various processes and measures a society may put in place to respond to these dilemmas are what we today call transitional justice.

How does society acknowledge large-scale, systemic violations? How can it redress them? How can it at last break the cycles of violence? What kind of reforms are needed to achieve equal justice for all, prevent conflict, and uphold and protect everyone’s basic rights and freedoms?

Answering these questions is a complex challenge. It invariably requires going back through a country’s history to entrenched injustices and grievances that lie at the root of violence. Many countries around the globe have undertook, or are undertaking, transitional justice processes. Each country must find its way, designing its own processes and finding its own solutions, based on its unique historical and socioeconomic context. There is no “one size fits all” approach or recipe that can be copied and pasted here and there and applied in the same fashion.

Read the full article about transitional justice by Fernando Travesí at Skoll Foundation.