ABSTRACT
This chapter explores key debates concerning the politics of transitional justice in Africa. It examines the ill-defined objectives of transitional justice. The chapter explains that tensions between the specific aims of peace and justice have generated heated debates in a wide range of African transitional settings. It examines the issues of neo-colonialism and problems of external transitional justice interventions, including questions of power, domination, agency, and ownership. The chapter also explores tensions inherent in attempts to combine international, national, and community-level approaches to transitional justice. Transitional justice has tended to emphasise the importance of particular institutions–for example, a widespread belief in the need for prosecutions of atrocity perpetrators–without coherently articulating their ultimate purposes. Human rights actors have been powerful in transitional justice from the outset, providing many of its intellectual, institutional, and financial resources. The chapter highlights recent trends toward 'holistic' responses to conflict, which propose combinations of these different levels of processes.
