Transitional justice in peacebuilding: dynamics of contestation in the DRC
This article examines the place of transitional justice in peacebuilding by exploring how domestic and international actors frame this relationship and how this, in turn, molds dynamics of contestation around transitional justice. Based on an analysis of transitional justice policy-making in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), the article shows how both external and domestic actors variously acted as transitional justice promoters and resisters, and how their positioning on transitional justice was strongly conditioned by their broader understandings of the nature of the con?ict and transitional justice’s role in peacebuilding. It is therefore suggested that contestation of transitional justice does not necessarily re?ect a rejection of international approaches to justice, but instead more broadly expresses a lack of agreement on what transitional justice is and what its goals are.
This article was published in the Journal of Intervention and Statebuilding and can be accessed via the journal’s website.
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