TY - JOUR
T1 - Transitional justice in the world, 1970-2007
T2 - Insights from a new dataset
AU - Olsen, Tricia D.
AU - Payne, Leigh A.
AU - Reiter, Andrew G.
N1 - Copyright:
Copyright 2010 Elsevier B.V., All rights reserved.
PY - 2010/11
Y1 - 2010/11
N2 - This article presents a new dataset of transitional justice mechanisms utilized worldwide from 1970-2007. These data complement the growing body of quantitative and comparative analyses of transitional justice. This article summarizes three important contributions made by the dataset. First, it includes five transitional justice mechanisms (trials, truth commissions, amnesties, reparations, and lustration policies), allowing scholars to avoid many of the methodological errors committed by performing single-mechanism studies. Second, it provides an expanded sample, both temporally and geographically, to facilitate greater comparative and policy impact. Third, the dataset enables scholars to analyze transitional justice across a variety of political contexts, including democratic transitions and civil wars. These data illuminate a new set of general trends and patterns in the implementation of transitional justice worldwide. The findings show that countries adopt amnesties more often than other mechanisms. They predominantly grant them in the context of civil war and to opponents of the state, rather than state agents. Courts rarely prosecute those currently in power for human rights violations. In civil war settings, rebels, rather than state actors, face trials. In post-authoritarian settings, courts try former authoritarian actors, but do not address crimes committed by the opposition to authoritarian rule. The dataset also reveals regional patterns of mechanism usage. Trials, lustration policies, and reparations occur most often in Europe. Non-European countries more frequently adopt truth commissions and amnesties than do their European counterparts, with a particularly high number of amnesties granted in Latin America.
AB - This article presents a new dataset of transitional justice mechanisms utilized worldwide from 1970-2007. These data complement the growing body of quantitative and comparative analyses of transitional justice. This article summarizes three important contributions made by the dataset. First, it includes five transitional justice mechanisms (trials, truth commissions, amnesties, reparations, and lustration policies), allowing scholars to avoid many of the methodological errors committed by performing single-mechanism studies. Second, it provides an expanded sample, both temporally and geographically, to facilitate greater comparative and policy impact. Third, the dataset enables scholars to analyze transitional justice across a variety of political contexts, including democratic transitions and civil wars. These data illuminate a new set of general trends and patterns in the implementation of transitional justice worldwide. The findings show that countries adopt amnesties more often than other mechanisms. They predominantly grant them in the context of civil war and to opponents of the state, rather than state agents. Courts rarely prosecute those currently in power for human rights violations. In civil war settings, rebels, rather than state actors, face trials. In post-authoritarian settings, courts try former authoritarian actors, but do not address crimes committed by the opposition to authoritarian rule. The dataset also reveals regional patterns of mechanism usage. Trials, lustration policies, and reparations occur most often in Europe. Non-European countries more frequently adopt truth commissions and amnesties than do their European counterparts, with a particularly high number of amnesties granted in Latin America.
KW - amnesties
KW - justice
KW - transitional trials
KW - truth commissions
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=78649698903&partnerID=8YFLogxK
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U2 - 10.1177/0022343310382205
DO - 10.1177/0022343310382205
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:78649698903
SN - 0022-3433
VL - 47
SP - 803
EP - 809
JO - Journal of Peace Research
JF - Journal of Peace Research
IS - 6
ER -