Three Decades of Transitional Justice Practice in Africa: Reflections on Lessons Learnt Towards an African Transformative Justice

ABSTRACT

As a field, transitional justice has exhibited great versatility in its response to the consequences of conflicts and in dealing with past human rights violations, doing so in ways that are meaningful to the present realities of victims. From its narrow legal framing of prioritizing accountability for war crimes, thus advancing retributive justice over other forms of justice, the field has expanded its focus and application to address legacies of the past, inequality and other social manifestations of harm as well as emerging issues and vulnerabilities. The African continent is home to this expansion of the field, with its three decades of weaving a tapestry of practice that has now taken shape to inform policy and both current and future interventions of transitional justice.

As an introduction to Issue 2 of Volume 18, I reflect on Africa’s journey of implementing transitional justice, with a keen focus on key lessons learnt and how these have contributed to the betterment of the transitional justice offering on the continent. Rather than a country-by-country analysis, I make use of illustrative country examples that demonstrate how transitional justice has evolved in its application to the contextual realities on the continent. There is wisdom that comes with hindsight, and this reflection takes full advantage of lessons learnt over three decades that have contributed to the advancement of transitional justice practice in Africa. An extensive reference will be made to the African Union Transitional Justice Policy (AUTJP) which was adopted by African Heads of State and Government in February 2019, which embodies, and to some extent codifies, this hindsight wisdom in policy form, in a bid to inform and improve future transitional justice practice.

EXPLORING THE TRANSFORMATIVE POTENTIAL OF TRANSITIONAL JUSTICE

Some practitioners and scholars have explored the transformative potential of transitional justice, going beyond its application only to post-conflict situations by expanding its reach through addressing systemic and structural issues such as inequality and racism and other historical legacies that haunt the present and pose a serious threat to the future. Although previously seen as difficult to achieve within the past legalistic framing of transitional justice, the adoption of a wider range of tools to pursue transitional justice and the urgent need to address historical injustices in tandem with the most immediate violations in order to bring about transformation have necessitated this exploration. Proponents for a transformative justice approach to transitional justice argue that one must transform political, economic, psychosocial and legal relationships while prioritizing local ownership and effective participation during all stages of the process.¹

With transformation of individuals and affected communities at the centre, the continent took heed of the transformative justice clarion call, at least in policy, in response to the glaring gaps and limitations of conventional transitional justice processes. One limitation of conventional transitional justice lies in defining it as only applicable to post-conflict or post-authoritarian contexts; the continent expanded the application of transitional justice to a wide variety of contexts, including those seeking to deal with historical legacies outside a post-conflict setting. Another limitation was overcome by requiring an intentional focus on distributive and transformative justice alongside restorative and retributive justice goals. The definition of transitional justice in the AUTJP situates socio-economic transformation as one of the ultimate goals of transitional justice.² With hindsight, the question posed by Rama Mani as far back as 2008, on whether transitional justice today can afford not to concern itself directly with social injustice and patterns of inequality, discrimination and marginalization,³ has been answered. The AUTJP, with its emphasis on context specificity and local ownership of transitional justice processes gives expression to the transformative agenda of transitional justice, highlighting in unequivocal terms that transitional justice in Africa cannot afford to ignore the legacies of the past, the growing social injustice and divisions as well as marginalization and socio-economic transformation. The transformative potential of transitional justice has found expression in how it is increasingly being implemented in non-transition contexts, for example in Kenya and Zimbabwe to address the 2007–2008 instability owing to the post-election violence in both countries. Distributive justice goals in the AUTJP call for redistribution of property, for example expropriation of land, equal access to resources and access to opportunities (for socio-economic growth and transformation) to the benefit of the previously disadvantaged. As a highly unequal society with high levels of inequality, South Africa’s attempts at distributive justice through affirmative action yielded some positive results, however its land expropriation without compensation policy has not been successful.⁴ The AUTJP’s distributive goals are yet to be effectively realized.

ADDRESSING HOW FAR BACK WE CAN GO IN ADDRESSING THE PAST AND BRINGING HISTORICAL LEGACIES TO THE AMBIT OF TRANSITIONAL JUSTICE

Africa has also been the epicentre of transitional justice processes that go beyond addressing the most recent conflicts and violence. Notwithstanding the end of colonial rule and the subsequent hope for liberation and the euphoria that came with the independence of African countries, the nightmare of one-party dictatorships, military rule and/or internal violence, civil wars, military coups and armed insurgencies instead prevailed. The causes of these challenges are deeply rooted in the structural violence of the colonial period and their perpetuation since the end of the colonial rule through bad governance and the interference of external powers. These, coupled with continued social, political and economic marginalization and inequalities across communities on the continent, painted a gloomy picture for conventional transitional justice processes. The limitations of mainstream transitional justice when it comes to addressing the underlying systemic inequality and historical legacies are evident in the impacts of these legacies in the daily lives of the majority of African people and the high levels of violence in countries like South Africa. The question of how far back transitional justice can go in addressing the past continues to be addressed in practice, institutional commitments and policy. Given the lasting impacts that structural inequality, endemic poverty, marginalization and exclusion, and the unresolved collective trauma that Africa’s brutal history of slavery and colonialism bring to bear on current conflicts and violence, the need to probe these historical legacies is being prioritized. Mauritius’ Truth and Justice Commission for instance was set up to explore the legacy of slavery and indentured servitude in the country covering a period of 370 years.⁵ Kenya’s Truth, Justice and Reconciliation Commission investigated gross human rights and economic rights injustices over the period covering the colonial era and independence struggle periods.⁶ Zimbabwe’s National Peace and Reconciliation Commission’s mandate includes investigating violations dating as far back as the precolonial era.⁷

A growing scholarly probe into addressing colonial era wrongs through transitional justice⁸ is complemented by active mobilization of victims in various countries in Africa who are demanding justice and reparations for colonial-era wrongs and the African Union’s Accra Proclamation on Reparations.⁹ The mobilization by mixed-race communities in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Burundi, Rwanda and Belgium against the Belgian colonial administration’s abduction of mixed-race children who were victims of segregation and discrimination during and in the aftermath of Belgian colonization¹⁰ stands out. The AUTJP has also not been lax in highlighting the presence and impacts of historical legacies in present manifestations of violence and conflicts. The policy highlights the need for transitional justice to address legacies of violence and conflicts and structural violations, including inequality, in an effort to achieve transition to the future of justice, equality and dignity.

GOING BEYOND CIVIL AND POLITICAL RIGHTS VIOLATIONS TO CONCRETELY ADDRESS SOCIO-ECONOMIC DIMENSIONS OF HARM

Closely linked to addressing structural and systemic inequalities has been the recognition of the need to go beyond addressing civil and political rights violations and recommending the need to address socio-economic dimensions of harm as root causes of the conflict. Attempts have been made to apply an expansive approach to address the broad scope of violations, including socio-economic dimensions of harm through transitional justice. Most African countries contended with the destruction of sources of livelihood and socio-economic infrastructure, exclusion and marginalization of key population groups, disparities in the distribution of resources, access and opportunities that facilitate socio-economic empowerment, ethnic and regional inequalities and corruption.

There has been a notable departure from the narrow approach of investigating and highlighting socio-economic challenges such as poverty, corruption, limited access to education and economic, social, civil and political inequalities as root causes of the conflict, as was the case in the Liberian Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Dimensions of violations that include deprivation of access to land, mineral resources and means of livelihood are now being addressed in truth commissions, with extended mandates being given to also address socio-economic rights abuses. Examples include the Kenyan Truth, Justice and Reconciliation Commission’s engagement with land expropriation, and the Tunisian Truth and Dignity Commission’s addressing of socio-economic marginalization and corruption. Liberia’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s mandate highlighted the importance of focusing on economic crimes, and in May 2024, almost 20 years later, President Boakai signed an Executive Order to establish the Office of a War and Economic Crimes Court. The AUTJP provides for redistributive justice (socio-economic justice) as a pillar of transitional justice that can be pursued to deliver socio-economic justice and equitable, inclusive development.¹¹ Redistributive measures touted by the policy include land reform and protection of property rights, ownership, access and use of land and resources on land, putting in place fiscal policies that provide educational and employment opportunities, particularly for youth.¹²

GENDERING TRANSITIONAL JUSTICE PROCESSES

Transitional justice mechanisms implemented on the African continent in the 1990s exhibited a gender-conscious approach.¹³ Africa’s attempts in gendering transitional justice and addressing the gendered dimensions¹⁴ of harm are exemplary. There has been a quick uptake and implementation of lessons learnt from what was overlooked in ongoing and subsequent transitional justice processes. For example, women were influential in the design of South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) and about 56.5 percent of the 21,227 testimonies submitted at the TRC were given by women. However, the women who came forward during the TRC hearings gave testimony about the violations and experiences of others, not their own, particularly at the hands of men in their lives as husbands, sons and male relatives. The gender consciousness during the TRC became evident when women’s rights activist organizations advocated for a gender-sensitive approach¹⁵ to hearings, calling for the establishment of special women’s hearings, and the TRC was receptive and adaptable in response to these calls. The three women’s hearings in Johannesburg, Cape Town and Johannesburg provided women with safe spaces to come forward and share their testimonies about their own personal experiences of gross human rights violations. This gender-sensitive approach, although it had to be fought for, saw 158 women coming forward to give testimony about their own violations.¹⁶ Gender in the South African TRC has been subject to scholarly inquiry.¹⁷ One of the laments against the TRC is the fact that this gender consciousness did not extend beyond sexual violence to other forms of gender violence such as poverty, discrimination when it comes to land ownership and inheritance, absence of education and cultural violence. One of the missed opportunities by the South African TRC was in addressing these types of violence that affected women and exacerbated their vulnerability which could have resulted in their socio-economic transformation.¹⁸ An argument is made that systemic apartheid violence fed into the gendered nature of apartheid-era violence.

Africa has also recorded several firsts when it comes to addressing the gendered dimensions of harm and informing international law practice. For instance, the International Criminal Tribunal of Rwanda was one of the first international tribunals to define rape in international criminal law and to recognize rape as a means of perpetrating genocide.¹⁹ The Special Court for Sierra Leone was also the first court to make convictions on forced marriages. Hissène Habré, the former president of Chad’s conviction for war crimes and crimes against humanity, including rape and sexual slavery of women between 1982 to 1990 when he was in power, made breakthroughs for women’s rights in Africa.

Although the South African TRC set the tone for gender consciousness, the wisdom of hindsight highlighted gaps and offered constructive criticism. For instance, the South African TRC has been criticized for overlooking the structural impact of apartheid on women’s lives.²⁰ It also faced criticism for categorizing rape as severe ill-treatment, a departure from the international law definition of rape as torture. The one chapter dedicated to women in the final TRC report was also critiqued for not sufficiently capturing the gendered nature of South Africa’s past.²¹ The TRC also neglected to address the social transformation of women during apartheid that would have facilitated developmental recommendations where access to education, health care and equal employment opportunities would have been made to address structural conditions that perpetuate women’s vulnerability.²²

These criticisms and lessons learnt found expression in subsequent truth commissions. Instead of add-on processes, addressing the gendered dimensions of harm became an intentional focus from the onset in some truth commissions. Although the mandate of Sierra Leone’s TRC did not specifically include the need to focus on addressing the gendered dimensions of harm, it drew lessons from South Africa’s silence. The TRC was mandated to provide ‘an opportunity for victims to give an account […] giving special attention to the subject of sexual abuses and to the experiences of children within the armed conflict.’²³ Its report also paid special attention to the experiences of women and girls. The chapter on ‘Women and the Armed Conflict in Sierra Leone’ analysed women’s gendered experiences in the conflict at political, legal, health and social welfare levels. The recommendations made in the report included reparations and review and enactment of laws on children’s rights, human trafficking and protection against sexual abuse and exploitation.

The Liberian TRC’s mandate included investigations of human rights violations and sexual violations, setting up of mechanisms and procedures to address gender-based violations experienced by women, children and other vulnerable groups during the war and setting up mechanisms to tackle gender-based violence. A gender committee made up of both national and international experts was set up to analyse the gender dimensions of the war and how gender shaped the realities of women in Liberia before, during and after the conflict. To guarantee women’s voices and sharing of their experiences, the Gender Committee held consultative town hall meetings and workshops and psychosocial support and medical services were offered to women victims. A more nuanced chapter on gender-based violence during the war was included and recommendations for sexual violence victims were made which included the passing of a sexual harassment law with specific provisions on empowering women and safeguarding their protection in the workplace, home and community.²⁴

Subsequent truth commissions added further nuance to gendering transitional justice and addressing the gendered dimensions of harm. Morocco’s Equity and Reconciliation Commission, Tunisia’s Truth and Dignity Commission and more recently The Gambia’s Truth, Reconciliation and Reparations Commission are cases in point.

Morocco’s Equity and Reconciliation addressed gaps in its mandate to tackle the gendered dimensions of harm through introducing separate closed-door individual and group hearings for women victims and witnesses. The Commission also funded an independent qualitative study on gender titled ‘Women and Political Violence during the Years of Lead in Morocco,’ to analyse the experiences of women. Morocco’s gender-sensitive and transformative reparation measures saw victims’ wives and daughters receiving equal amounts of money to victims’ male relatives, in direct challenge of the Moroccan inheritance laws. In making the decision about reparation awards, the commission considered the additional harm that women suffered owing to their status in a patriarchal society. The Commission also made transformative recommendations which included development of an integrated and forward-looking national strategy for rehabilitating and empowering women; drawing women out of their vulnerable position by combating illiteracy, poverty, discrimination and violence; and developing their participation in public life and decision making.²⁵

Tunisia’s Truth and Dignity Commission had a mandate to address sexual violence and the gendered dimensions of harm. Special procedures were established to facilitate women’s participation. Victims of sexual violence of both sexes were afforded protection from reprisals, stigma and ostracization through digitizing, encoding and encrypting their testimonies and their overall participation in the commission. Secret hearings were set up for women to provide confidentiality. A toll-free number and a dedicated desk were set up to receive victims of sexual violence, mainly women. During the hearings, interim relief was provided for health, social and psychological needs of victims. The Commission’s nine-part report has one part focusing on gender (sexual violations), and recommendations made included individual and collective reparations, with the highest awards of individual reparations given to rape victims. The Commission also recommended the establishment of health institutions to provide psychosocial support and sexual and reproductive health rights to women, with the institutions bearing the names of women victims.²⁶

The lessons learnt from the earlier transitional justice processes on gendering transitional justice informed norm and standard setting as well as benchmarks for addressing the gendered dimensions of harm. The African Union Transitional Justice recognizes the gendered nature of conflicts in which women and girls are disproportionately affected, both directly and indirectly, by violence. One of the values underpinning the policy is due regard to the gender and generational dimensions of violations in transitional justice processes. Gender concerns were also incorporated into the policy through mainstreaming gender across all pillars of transitional justice and as a cross-cutting issue.²⁷ Gender is expanded to include men and boys, which is critical as men and boys can also be victims of sexual violence, as highlighted in the case of The Gambia.

The Gambia’s Truth, Reconciliation and Reparations Commission (TRRC) – one of the continent’s most recent truth commissions – used the AUTJP as a guide, and some of the benchmarks on gendering transitional justice were implemented. The mandate of the TRRC called for mainstreaming of gender and adopting a child- and gender-sensitive approach in investigating women and children’s human rights’ violations. Witness protection measures included giving victims the option to give testimony to the commission in public, on camera or in written statements. The TRRC recognized men, girls and boys as victims of sexual violence, and interim relief was provided to victims of sexual violence including corrective surgery for women. Recommendations included prosecution of perpetrators of sexual violence and reparations for victims as well as reform of laws. The Gambian government also took steps to keep the reparations list open for victims, including victims of sexual violence, to come forward and have their violations recorded, making them eligible for reparations. This is a marked improvement from South Africa’s TRC where only those victims who gave testimony during the time-bound TRC were eligible for reparations. In 2023, the Gambian government passed the Victims Reparations Act which sets out procedures for establishing a Reparation Fund and the Victims Reparations Commission.

ELEVATING TRADITIONAL/INDIGENOUS JUSTICE MECHANISMS AND INFORMAL PROCESSES TO COMPLEMENT AND FACILITATE JUSTICE

The limitations of formal transitional justice processes, and retributive justice in particular, to deliver justice for large-scale violations became apparent in the aftermath of the genocide in Rwanda in 1994. As one of the earlier transitional justice contexts, Rwanda’s option to use gacaca (grass) to supplement national courts and the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda in delivering justice set the tone for adapting and implementing traditional justice mechanisms as an avenue to address injustice. Through 12,000 gacaca courts, almost 2 million cases were tried in culturally understood environments by the communities that experienced the genocide. Africa takes the lead on turning to local justice and indigenous practices of dispute resolution to secure justice and reconciliation.²⁸ Traditional justice mechanisms have facilitated a holistic approach to justice, fostered restorative justice and healing and catalysed reconciliation, bringing back harmony and re-establishing relationships in communities. Fambul Tok (family talk) in Sierra Leone became the catchment mechanism that bridged the gaps left by formal transitional justice mechanisms and went a long way in facilitating reconciliation and reintegration of both victims and perpetrators back into the community. Mato oput (drinking the bitter herb) in Uganda dealt with the complexity of addressing the issue of victims turned perpetrators, with children abducted to join the Lord Resistance Army being dubbed perpetrators of gross human rights violations and crimes in their adulthood. The communities opted for mato oput, to reconcile victims and perpetrators, accepting that the perpetrators were their children in the first place. Other traditional processes include bashingantahe (panel of wise men) in Burundi and Magamba spirit mediums in Mozambique which also provided alternatives to formal justice mechanisms in addressing the consequences of conflicts.

Although traditional justice mechanisms have been criticized for their flaws, with some such as mato oput being critiqued for doing more harm to victims of sexual violence, the AUTJP has given traditional justice mechanisms prominence, affording them equal status as formal justice mechanisms. The policy promotes adapting and using traditional justice mechanisms alongside the formal mechanisms to address justice, peace, accountability, social cohesion, reconciliation and healing.²⁹

In conclusion, the AUTJP is a beacon of hope for responsive, resonant and contextually relevant transitional justice processes on the continent and beyond. It is the embodiment of lessons learnt from transitional justice practice on the continent and demonstrates the ability of transitional justice to be adaptable to expand its frontiers. As the saying goes, practice makes perfect; three decades of transitional justice practice on the continent has indeed led to the betterment of transitional justice.

Transitional justice has become the go-to field with current and ever-evolving tools and approaches to address violations and both past and present occurrences. The articles included in this issue are a testament to this evolution of transitional justice, an evolution that is not only limited to the African continent.

This rich and diverse array of topics covered in this issue make up for a compelling academic reading.

In their mixed-methods study, ‘Ex-Combatants and the Truth Commission in Colombia: An Analysis of the Participation of Former Military and Ex-Guerrillas,’ Juan E. Ugarriza and Laly C. Peralta contribute to understudied aspects of transitional justice in Colombia. They conducted in-depth interviews with ex-military personnel and former guerrillas towards exploring their potential contributions to Colombian Truth Commission’s truth and memory processes. They argue that while the Commission’s formal work prioritized victims’ narratives, and not those of militants, their two-year research analysis of interviews and documents revealed that these former fighters focused on historical memory narratives that sustained confrontational attitudes towards their previous adversaries rather than on seeking truth. They argue that an enhanced focus on the diversities of perspectives in transitional justice processes would make stronger contributions to post-conflict reconciliation.

Keng-Wei Fan and Jun-Ru Lin’s article, ‘Eliminate Structural Injustice or Perpetuate It: Indigenous Peoples and Transitional Justice in the Criminal Court System of Taiwan,’ analyses reforms introduced to the Indigenous Specialized Criminal Court (ISC) in Taiwan in 2017. Policies of Indigenous assimilation and erasure first undertaken by Japanese colonial rulers in 1895 continued for more than a century. Starting in 2001, Indigenous activities previously criminalized began to be decriminalized. The ISCs were established in 2014. However, as Fan and Lin argue, the 2017 reforms were necessary because the initial structure of ISCs did not ensure recognition of Indigenous cultures by and through law and legal processes; in fact, ISCs continued to ignore tribal norms in the adjudication of legal disputes. Fan and Lin demonstrate that some reforms did increase recognition of a cultural defence grounded in Indigenous norms in some cases, especially those involving natural resources. However, judges continue to see culture as relevant for a limited domain of cases, pointing to the need for further reforms.

Samara Hand’s article, ‘Australian Reconciliation and the Enduring Invisibility of Whiteness,’ is an excellent complement to this year’s Special Issue on Race, Racism and Transitional Justice. Focusing on reconciliation processes in Australia, she argues that those undertaken to date perpetuate the dispossession of Indigenous lands due, at least in part, to their failure to critically engage with the root causes of whiteness. Drawing on critical whiteness studies, Aileen Moreton-Robinson’s concept of patriarchal white sovereignty and Michael Roghberg’s figure of the ‘implicated subject,’ Hand seeks to both centre and complicate the concept of whiteness towards exploring ways of overcoming the Indigenous/settler or victim/perpetrator binary in these transitional justice processes.

In her article, ‘Learning from Civil Society Actors in Turkey: Using Transitional Justice in an Ongoing Conflict,’ Nisan Alici explores civil society efforts to pursue transitional justice for abuses committed by the Turkish government throughout the Kurdish conflict, such as the unofficial Diyarbakir Prison Truth and Justice Commission. While such efforts have resulted in some degree of accountability, truth and justice for victims of state violence, the impact of those efforts has been undercut by the 2017 constitutional referendum consolidating presidential power and the continuing conflict. Through interviews with civil society activists, Alici illustrates how this consolidation and the ongoing conflict have blunted political possibilities for justice as well as the imaginative capacities of activists, who see justice as necessary but restrain their actions amidst fears of a crackdown.

In another contribution, this time focused on displaced populations from Bhutan, Alice Neikirk and Ray Nickson discuss the plight of this diasporic community in ‘Transitions without Justice: Bhutanese Refugees in Nepal.’ They argue that those who took power in Bhutan’s transition to democracy failed to provide justice for the largest minority community who had been forcibly expelled from the country during a period of nation building. They discuss some of the multiple challenges to transitional justice experienced by approximately 100,000 Bhutanese refugees and those in the diasporic communities who received neither their hoped-for repatriation nor justice.

Caitlin Biddolph takes up a critical challenge facing transitional justice in recent years, that of ‘recognizing anti-queer violence within transitional justice; the inclusion of LGBTQIA+ people in transitional justice processes; and the development of queer decolonial critiques of transitional justice.’ Through an analysis of documents from the United Nations, the International Center for Transitional Justice and the International Criminal Court, her article, ‘Queering the Global Governance of Transitional Justice: Tensions and (Im)possibilities,’ seeks to develop a queer perspective to the global governance of transitional justice. She traces the (cis-heteronormative, colonial, carceral) violence of transitional justice and its institutionalization at the global level, arguing that transitional justice must be queered if it is to achieve its promises of more radical, liberatory worlds within and beyond formal justice mechanisms.

In their article, ‘Truth Commissions and the Prevention of Targeted Mass Killings,’ Kerry Whigham, Trey Billing and Hollie Nyseth Nzitatira present findings from their cross-national research that sought to demonstrate that, in addition to helping come to terms with violent pasts, truth commissions can prevent future violence. Findings from their empirical study confirmed that the countries that had implemented truth commissions between 1972 and 2018 saw a significant reduction in the recurrence of targeted mass killings compared to those countries that had not implemented a truth commission. The article discusses the diverse functions of truth commissions and proposes how their preventive capacity might be further strengthened through the application of an atrocity prevention lens.

Seetal Sunga’s Note from the Field, ‘How Truth Commissioners Can Effect Transformative Change in a Polarized Age,’ focuses on her experiences with the Truth and Reconciliation Commission for Canada dealing with the Indian residential schools system. She argues that perceptions of the legitimacy of commissioners and the effectiveness of truth commissions are affected by interactional and relational ethical issues. Specifically, in polarized contexts, perceptions of legitimacy will be shaped by how commissioners respond to the fear among survivors that abuses generate, the risks of epistemic injustice in handling the testimony of survivors and the risks of manipulation of fear by members of dominant communities threatened by the exposure of abuse.

Jeremie Bracka’s Note from the Field takes us back to a focus on persistent harms of colonial violence within an ‘established democracy.’ In contrast to Samara Hand’s critical analysis of failings of reconciliation processes in Australia’s transitional justice processes, Bracka’s ‘“It Begins with Victoria” – Reckoning with Race and Colonial Harm for Indigenous Australia: The Yoorrook Justice Commission’ argues that Victoria’s establishment of the Yoorrook Justice Commission culminated in a formal truth-telling and treaty process that departed from previous single-issue inquiries that dealt with Australia’s colonial past in piecemeal, ineffective ways. Although it has not resolved all historic injustices, Bracka argues that the Commission is an important precedent and makes a contribution towards transitional justice in Australia through its ‘level of Indigenous ownership, its authority as a Royal Commission and the breadth of its inquiry.’

Finally, Frank Haldemann’s Review Essay ‘Transitional Justice and the Legacy of World War II’ discusses four books dealing with the politics of memory around World War II in formerly occupied countries in Europe. Amidst the recent electoral gains by far-right parties in multiple European countries, this timely essay illustrates how memories of the past shape political possibilities in the present. Where memories of occupation encompass occupation by both the Nazis and the Soviets, narratives focusing exclusively on the Holocaust created post-Cold War tensions and opportunities for the manipulation of Holocaust memories by nationalist populists. By contrast, French post-war memory wars over the Vichy regime until the 1990s ignored almost entirely the issue of French persecution of the Jews. In Italy, memory eschews altogether responsibility for radical evil; the post-war conception of Italy as a victim of German aggression and as establishing a post-fascist society led to little reckoning; the neo-fascist governing party ruling today sharply challenges the viability of this self-conception.

Footnotes