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Lucy Allais, Francois du Bois and Antje du Bois-Pedain (eds), Justice and Reconciliation in Post-Apartheid South Africa, Human Rights Law Review, Volume 11, Issue 3, September 2011, Pages 595–600, https://doi.org/10.1093/hrlr/ngr016
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Extract
This extremely interesting collection deals with transitional processes in South Africa since the 1990s, taking stock of what they have achieved, their successes and failures in bringing about reconciliation, repairing past harms and transforming South Africa into a stable and just society. The wide-ranging articles include both theoretical and empirical analyses of processes including the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC), the Constitutional Court, the land reparations process, judicial processes other than the TRC such as post-TRC prosecutions and post-apartheid art. As the main official process for dealing with the past, the TRC naturally gets much of the focus, and is evaluated in terms of its amnesty process, accountability findings, reparations and the role of forgiveness in the workings of the process. The articles do not shrink from criticising the processes and the post-apartheid state, and document numerous serious failings. Yet the book simultaneously provides an optimistic view of the innovations made in the South African strategies, and shows that despite messy compromise, failures of design and failures of implementation, there has also been some success in innovative procedures for dealing with exceptionally difficult problems.
