Breaking the Cycle of Violence: The Role of Transitional Justice

A new evidence review commissioned by USAID’s Bureau for Democracy, Human Rights, and Governance (DRG) suggests that Transitional Justice (TJ) approaches have directly and indirectly reduced future atrocities and promoted peace and human rights, by providing opportunities to build stable and inclusive political environments and break cycles of violence. The UN Special Rapporteur on the promotion of truth, justice, reparation, and guarantees of nonrecurrence defines TJ as a “set of measures that can be implemented to redress the legacies of massive human rights abuses, where ‘redressing the legacies’ means, primarily, giving force to human rights norms that were systematically violated.” These measures may include trials, amnesties, truth-telling processes, vetting, reparations, and memorialization. TJ works to prevent atrocities by addressing individual incentives to commit them, reforming institutions to reduce their structural causes, and/or limiting their social causes by changing the beliefs and attitudes of ordinary people. 

This edition examines the following topics that were highlighted in the literature review:

• Addressing Individual Incentives to Commit Atrocities
• Reforming Institutions to Reduce Atrocity Risks
• Addressing Social Drivers of Atrocities