Special Issue
As these learnings show, human rights frameworks, peacebuilding efforts, and transitional justice mechanisms are unable to fully address the varied needs that arise in the aftermath of war. And as our survey responses from Nepal and Colombia show, there is no consensus on whether people have even heard of formal transitional justice mechanisms or related laws.
Overall, our research shows that official post-war mechanisms cannot remedy all of the inequalities and harms that created the conditions for war in the first place. It is not surprising, then, that despite the existence of centuries of institutions and frameworks designed to build more secure and peaceful worlds, 2023 saw the highest number of state-based conflicts since the end of World War II.
While victims who are aware of the laws utilize them to seek redress and demand broader societal reforms, they also recognize that laws do not fully address the challenges faced by different groups of women.
These complications led us to ask,
what kinds of
healing and repair are needed instead?
To explore other ways of thinking about healing and justice after war, we convened a Forum in The Journal of Genocide Research and a Special Issue in Security Dialogue to think through other avenues to transformative change in conflict-affected societies. In one of these articles, Dominique Vidale-Plaza highlights how survivor groups enact practices that can radically transform the ways institutions organize care. Liyana Kayali’s article documents how Palestinian women in the West Bank use incremental acts of transformation against the Israeli occupation in order to contribute to their communities and make meaning in their lives. Their arguments illustrate what recovery and meaning-making after or during violence look like when led by those who are most impacted.
Have you ever heard of transitional justice?
"The first thing they need is recognition and then justice. And that’s when the process of healing can start. They have been locked with their traumas for 30 years. What we do is only a small part of what needs to be done."
– Activist from Tuzla, Bosnia. 2022
I don’t want prosecutions. I don’t need prosecutions. I am ok with amnesty. But I need to know; I need information. I need to know what happened to my husband because my son is now 12 years old. And he doesn’t know what has happened. He sees the picture of his father that is hanging in the house, but he doesn’t know what happened to him.
– Activist from Pasikuda, Sri Lanka. 2020
Sample: 1401 people
Colombia
Nepal
