ABSTRACT
The chapter argues that the notion of transition justice has a particular application to settler colonial states. Settler colonialism involved substantial and systematic violence against Indigenous peoples, and these injustices have led to contemporary demands for reparations. Where states have been moved to consider a reparative approach to these injustices, the responses have been limited, and only developed after years of adversarial litigation by Indigenous peoples. Past historical injustices have a direct link to perhaps the most pressing human rights issues facing contemporary Indigenous peoples: that is, their contemporary over-representation in settler-state criminal justice systems. Recognising this point opens up a new way of conceptualising the link between restorative and transitional justice, and their connection to Indigenous concepts of justice. Restorative justice, specifically conceptualised in the context of Indigenous justice, has application to both criminal justice, and to broader problems of changing and challenging the effects of colonialism.
