The link between transitional justice and security sector reform (SSR), although acknowledged, has not been sufficiently explored. This article, by the Geneva Centre for the Democratic Control of Armed Forces (DCAF), attempts to establish that they can mutually affect each other in numerous ways. This can have both positive and negative impacts upon long-term reform and sustainable peace. The article also evaluates the merits and challenges faced by transitional justice mechanisms, and argues for a complimentary approach to transitional justice.
Since the end of the Cold War, mechanisms of transitional justice have been increasingly promoted. Transitional justice aims firstly to initiate reconciliation between parties and populations in post-conflict societies by establishing processes of accountability and acknowledgement. Secondly, it aims to deter reoccurrence of human rights violations and ensure sustainable peace.
The definition of ‘security sector’ has evolved to incorporate traditional security actors (police and military), justice institutions, non-statutory security forces (rebel groups), and management and oversight bodies (ministries and parliament). SSR constitutes these actors working together to operate according to principles of democracy and good governance. It aims to allow citizens to live their lives in safety.
A variety of transitional justice mechanisms used in post-conflict societies can impact upon SSR.
- Prosecutions are problematic because they require solid democratic security sector governance, which is frequently lacking in war-torn societies. Hybrid courts can be used to generate higher legitimacy and transparency and can allow for successful prosecutions.
- Truth-seeking Commissions can enhance reconciliation (and are often presented as better at doing so than other traditional justice mechanisms). Also, truth commission reports generally include recommendations for SSR and thus they have the potential to lay the ground for institutional change within a post-conflict society.
- Traditional Informal Justice Mechanisms (TIJM) can contribute towards SSR in that they allow more people access to justice than formal systems. However, they can also undermine justice due to the existence of different police forces and punishments violating defendants’ human rights.
- It is important to acknowledge that Reparations will not always take the form of financial payments. For example, they might involve reform of state institutions by new governments so as to prevent previous abuses of human rights reoccurring, having a significant impact upon SSR.
- Vetting and Lustration have been implemented to ensure accountability for past acts and to prevent human rights violators from becoming part of the reforming security system. It provides enhanced accountability while ensuring stabilisation and peace.
Debate around transitional justice has often centred on the argument that criminal prosecutions tend to promote a return to conflict, whereas truth-seeking as a means of accountability has been purported to encourage peace and reconciliation. However, there is scope to apply a more complimentary approach that would be based on:
- using a combination of different transitional justice mechanisms whilst coordinating and working with the processes of SSR; and
- avoiding one-size-fits-all approaches to transitional justice, or indeed to SSR.
