Transitional Justice Data Base Project

Transitional justice mechanisms, or institutional arrangements for addressing past authoritarian state violence, have proliferated around the world since the 1970s.  These have included elaborate truth commissions and trials intended to hold perpetrators accountable; restorative justice mechanisms such as reparations, monuments, and other public memory projects; and constitutional amendments and institution building, such as the creation of ombudsmen, intended to safeguard human rights.  Despite significant geographic and institutional variations, transitional justice arrangements share a common set of goals aimed to avoid repeating, reenacting, or reliving past horror, deter future violators, establish democratic (particularly legal) political institutions, and restore the dignity of citizens victimized by atrocity.  Despite its growing importance to the democratization process, current studies of transitional justice often remain case-specific and lack the ability to draw broad conclusions about the phenomenon.  This project seeks to rectify this deficiency by creating a global data set of transitional justice mechanisms from 1970-present.  The findings will help us assess what impact transitional justice on the prospect for peace and the deterrence of human rights violations in emerging democracies.  If transitional justice does have a positive impact on transitional states, which specific mechanism, or combinations of mechanisms, should states employ to best achieve these desired results?  Once identified, what conditions best facilitate the adoption of these mechanisms?