Legacies of State Violence and Transitional Justice in Latin America: A Janus-Faced Paradigm?

Over the last quarter century, transitional justice has achieved paradigmatic status as the theme of dozens of conferences and thousands of academic and nonacademic publications. The United Nations promotes transitional justice in postconflict situations, and the International Center for Transitional Justice in New York City supplies advice to state institutions and policymakers, works with civil society organizations and researchers, and analyzes and reports on transitional justice developments around the world. The concept or some elements of it have been subject to strong criticism, yet much of this criticism has been theoretically derived and has had little or no impact on practitioners' quest for the best or proper combination of, say, truth commissions, justice, and reparations in any particular case of political transition. This book pulls together seven viewpoints from the ground up on transitional justice from social movement activists, victims, forensic specialists, and academics working in and on Argentina, El...