Page 19 - NYLS Magazine • 2014 • Vol. 33, No. 2

In 1991,Professor Ruti G. Teitel War period, when rifts developed, for example, over the assertion
coined the phrase
“transitional justice” to describe a variety of legal approaches used to seek accountability
for past human rights violations following a transition from authoritarian government to a constitution-based democracy. At
the time, the Soviet Union had recently collapsed, and some Latin American countries had made the transition from oppressive regimes to democracy. Professor Teitel’s original insight was that “wherever the criminal justice response was compromised or otherwise limited, there were other ways to respond to the predecessor regime’s repressive rule.” Such alternatives include truth commissions, reparations, and political reforms. In Transitional Justice, published in 2000, she fleshed out her original insight into a broad, detailed, and persuasive analysis of a diversity of responses to injustice following political upheaval. The American Journal of Comparative Law called it “essential reading for all scholars as well as activists working in the field of transitional justice.”
In her latest book, Globalizing Transitional Justice, Professor Teitel addresses transitional justice as it has taken shape during the political conflicts of the past 15 years. She defines the present period as a “global phase of transitional justice,” characterized by movement “from exceptional transitional responses to a ‘steady-state’ justice”; from “a focus on state-centric obligations to a focus upon the
of the equivalence of political and economic rights in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Yet Professor Teitel argues that, “despite the general record of failure of criminal accountability, and the Nuremberg Tribunal’s anomalous nature, the Tribunal’s impact has transcended its particular circumstances to contribute a guiding force for a war-driven Century.”
In an interview, Professor Teitel elaborated on that point: “One can see the symbol of the prior internationalist vision of accountability in the recent establishment of a permanent International Criminal Court, yet while there is arguably now a neutral site of judgment, of course, there remain important political considerations concerning the time and place of accountability, depending on the context.”
Other chapters address the trials of Saddam Hussein and Slobodan Milosevic, as well as civil action mechanisms, e.g. the use of the Alien Tort Statute as a means of addressing human rights claims from other countries in U.S. courts, among other topics.
Chapter 4, “Human Rights in Transition: Transitional Justice Genealogy,” gets to the heart of recent history. Here, Professor Teitel describes three phases of transitional justice in recent decades: a move from internationalism to a stage of local justice; a focus on restoration and reconciliation with less emphasis on punishment;
One can see the symbol of the prior internationalist vision of accountability in the recent establishment of a permanent international Criminal Court, yet while there is arguably now a neutral site of judgment, of course, there remain important political considerations concerning the time and place of accountability, depending on the context.
far broader array of interest in non-state actors associated with globalization”; and from “advancing democratization and state- building” to “promoting and maintaining peace and human security.” In addition to a new introductory chapter and an epilogue, the book consists of 11 essays previously published in law journals and as chapters in other books. They are grouped into four parts: Overview, Roots, Narratives, and Conflict Transition and the Rule of Law.
The book begins with the legacy of the universal human rights ideal as epitomized by the Military Tribunal at Nuremberg following World War II. Professor Teitel observes that despite genocide and other atrocities perpetrated in Cambodia, Rwanda, Yugoslavia, and elsewhere, it took a full half-century after Nuremberg for another human rights tribunal to convene. Moreover, she points out, the universal human rights standard proved vulnerable during the Cold
and the prevalence of more complex situations, often involving a reliance on supranational institutions, with transitional justice as a norm rather than an exception. As she describes it, “War in a time of peace, political fragmentation, weak states, small wars, and steady conflict all characterize contemporary political conditions.”
Certainly, political conditions in recent years exhibit those characteristics, as witnessed in the conflicts in North Africa and the Middle East. In the interview, Professor Teitel observed, “While one can see from the very start of the Arab spring the demand for transitional justice—e.g., in Egypt, Tunisia, Libya—nevertheless, often the realities of such justice seeking has been complex, as where due process remains unavailable, trials or other measures will not serve to promote rule of law in divided societies.” •
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