ABSTRACT
This chapter shifts the attention from established transitional justice processes to initiatives carried out at the level of civil society, arguing that it is among social actors that people might be able to identify transitional justice efforts that can be characterised as ‘transformative’. It argues that ‘transformative’ justice in the case of local initiatives in Bosnia means overcoming ethnicity as an organising principle of post-war justice processes, an attempt to include non-institutional actors, going beyond state-sponsored mechanisms and heavily institutionalised civil society organisations, and a critique or even rejection of liberal transition paradigm. The chapter discusses a critique of conventional transitional justice approaches, and emphasises the need for an alternative approach to dealing with post-war justice processes. It focuses on the meaning of transformative justice by pondering on and identifying what elements make local justice initiatives transformative. The chapter analyses what transformative justice might look like in the case of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
