ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book focuses on Arab Spring transitional justice, it is important to recognize that transitional justice has taken place in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region before. Transitional justice initiatives may encompass both judicial and non-judicial mechanisms, including individual prosecutions, reparations, truth-seeking, institutional reform, vetting and dismissals'. After authoritarian Central and Eastern European communist regimes fell in the early 1990s, transitional justice primarily took the form of lustration. The Arab Spring, and the political changes and transitions to which it has given rise, have altered the political landscape of the MENA in a way that seemed almost impossible to imagine only half a decade ago. The rise of political Islam also has important implications for Arab Spring transitional justice as a result of the actual content of its beliefs.
