Essex Transitional Justice Network

The Essex Transitional Justice Network (ETJN) held its first international conference in Colchester on 16-17 September 2010. The conference brought researchers, practitioners, and decision-makers together to discuss challenges faced by societies in transition and possible ways forward. The conference provided a unique opportunity for advancing understandings of transitional justice,bridging gaps between different disciplines as well as between theory and practice.

The conference addressed the following key research areas in the field:

• Conceptual and normative issues: clarifying the conceptual and normative nature of transitional justice (Does it differ from ‘ordinary’ justice? What kind of trade-offs does it licence or rule out?)
• Data archiving and analysis: collecting, documenting and making available to wider audiences the records of local justice mechanisms, truth commissions, victims and witness accounts.
• Economic dimension of transitional justice: exploring economic issues, such as poverty and redress, corruption, sovereign debt accumulated by previous regimes, and the responsibility of transnational corporations.
• Gender- and children-focused approach: investigating the effects of conflicts, repression and fundamental socio-political change on women, the LGBT community, and children.
• Justice dimension: studying different justice mechanisms (local, national, international) and their relationship so as to identify the challenges faced in the fight against impunity and to consider possible remedies.
• Peacekeeping and peacebuilding: understanding the relation between transitional justice and peacekeeping/ peacebuilding, linking the two, and studying the security sector of countries undergoing transitions.

To read the full report on the 2010 conference please click here.