Law and Politics in Transitional Justice

Abstract

The tension between law and politics places transitional justice under cross-pressures. The impetus to hold perpetrators legally accountable for atrocities and major rights violations has emerged in part from the expectation that subjecting political behavior to the apolitical judgment of law will exert a civilizing effect. As demands for accountability have risen, politics has played a central role at every step. The past decade has seen a flourishing of research in empirical political science on the relationship between law and politics in postconflict and postauthoritarian justice. This research has tried to explain the turn to individual legal accountability and the development of norms and institutions for accountability. Research has stressed the role of politics in shaping the implementation of trials and other modes of accountability. It has also examined the consequences of these modes of accountability. We address research on each of these topics.