Transitional Justice and Peacebuilding on the Ground: Victims and Ex-Combatants (Law, Conflict and International Relations) (23 page)

2
 I will use “traditional justice,” “indigenous justice,” and “custom” or “customary law” interchangeably. Rather than putting these terms in quotations throughout, I note here the changing, even volatile, nature of tradition, as well as the porous boundaries of indigeneity.

3
 United Nations Secretary-General,
Report on the Rule of Law and Transitional Justice in Conflict and Post-conflict Societies
, UN Doc S/2004/616 (3 August 2004), available at <
www.un.org/Docs/sc/sgrep04.html
>, para. 36, accessed 8 June 2008.

4
 Sally Engle Merry, “Legal Pluralism,”
Law and Society Review
, vol. 22, no. 5 (1988), pp. 869–96, 870.

5
 On the prevalence of law and legalism within transitional justice, see Kieran McEvoy, “Letting Go of Legalism: Developing a ‘Thicker’ Version of Transitional Justice,” in Kieran McEvoy and Lorna McGregor (eds),
Transitional Justice From Below: Grassroots Activism and the Struggle for Change
(Oxford and Portland, OR: Hart, 2008), pp. 15–45; Christine Bell, “Transitional Justice, Interdisciplinarity and the State of the ‘Field’ or ‘Non-Field,’”
International Journal of Transitional Justice
, vol. 3, no. 1 (2009), pp. 5–27.

6
 United Nations Secretary-General,
Report on the Rule of Law and Transitional Justice in Conflict and Post-conflict Societies
(2004), available at <
www.unrol.org/files/2004%20report
. pdf
>, accessed 29 July 2011.

7
 Johan Galtung, “Violence, Peace, and Peace Research,”
Journal of Peace Research
, vol. 6, no. 3 (1969), pp. 167–91.

8
 On these limits of transitional justice, see Wendy Lambourne, “Transitional Justice and Peacebuilding after Mass Violence,”
International Journal of Transitional Justice
, vol. 3, no. 1 (2009), pp. 28–48; Zinaida Miller, “Effects of Invisibility: In Search of the ‘Economic’ in Transitional Justice,”
International Journal of Transitional Justice
, vol. 2 (2008), pp. 266–91; Rosemary Nagy, “Transitional Justice as Global Project: Critical Reflections,”
Third World Quarterly
, vol. 29, no. 2 (2008), pp. 275–89.

9
 I borrow Merry’s distinction between “classic” and “new” legal pluralism. Merry, “Legal Pluralism,” op. cit., p. 872.

10
 Martin Chanock,
Law, Custom and Social Order: The Colonial Experience in Malawi and Zambia
(New York: Cambridge University Press, 1985) cited in Sally Engle Merry, “From Law and Colonialism to Law and Globalization,”
Law and Social Inquiry
, vol. 28, no. 2 (2003), pp. 569–90.

11
 John Griffiths, “What is Legal Pluralism?”
Journal of Legal Pluralism and Unofficial Law
, vol. 24 (1986), pp. 1–55.

12
 See Brian Z. Tamanaha, “The Folly of the ‘Social Scientific’ Concept of Legal Pluralism,”
Journal of Law and Society
, vol. 20, no. 2 (1993), pp. 192–217, 298.

13
 Gordon R. Woodman, “Legal Pluralism and the Search for Justice,”
Journal of African Law
, vol. 40, no. 2 (1996), pp. 152–67, 158. State legal pluralism is mapped alongside international legal/normative orders in this research.

14
 Boaventura de Sousa Santos,
Toward a New Legal Common Sense
, 2nd ed. (London: Butterworths, 2002; reprint, 2nd ed.), p. 85.

15
 Sally Falk Moore, “Law and Social Change: The Semi-Autonomous Social Field as an Appropriate Subject of Study,”
Law and Society Review
, vol. 7, no. 4 (1973), pp. 719–46.

16
 Paige Arthur, “How ‘Transitions’ Reshaped Human Rights: A Conceptual History of Transitional Justice,”
Human Rights Quarterly
, vol. 31, no. 2 (2009), pp. 321–67, p. 324.

17
 The Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights series, “Rule of Law Tools for Post-Conflict States,” are available at <
www.ohchr.org/EN/PUBLICATIONSRESOURCES/Pages/SpecialIssues.aspx
>, accessed 10 June 2011.

18
 
Velásquez-Rodríguez v. Honduras
, Judgment of July 21, 1989, Inter-Am. Ct. H.R. (Ser. C) No. 7 (1989);
Study on the Right to Truth
(Report of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights) UN Doc E/CN.4/2006/91 (8 February 2006); UN General Assembly Resolution 60/147,
Basic Principles and Guidelines on the Right to Remedy and Reparation for Victims of Gross Violations of International Human Rights Law and Serious Violations of International Humanitarian Law
, U.N. Doc E/CN.4/2005/59 (16 December 2005).

19
 Chandra Lekha Sriram and Brad Roth,”Externalization of Justice: What Does it Mean and What is at Stake?”
Finnish Yearbook of International Law
, vol. 12 (2001), pp. 2–6; Mark A. Drumbl,
Atrocity, Punishment and International Law
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007), p. 127ff.

20
 Lederach, cited in Rama Mani,
Beyond Retribution: Seeking Justice in the Shadows of War
(Malden, MA: Polity, 2002), p. 14.

21
 For examples, see Chandra Lekha Sriram, Johanna Herman, and Olga Martin-Ortega (eds),
Peacebuilding and the Rule of Law in Africa: Just Peace?
(New York: Routledge, 2010); Augustine S. J. Park, “Consolidating Peace: Rule of Law Institutions and Local Justice Practices in Sierra Leone,”
South African Journal on Human Rights
, vol. 24, no. 3 (2008), pp. 536–64; Kirsti Samuels, “Rule of Law Reform in Post-Conflict Countries: Operational Initiatives and Lessons Learnt,”
Social Development Papers: Conflict Prevention and Reconstruction
, no. 37 (2006), available at <
http://siteresources.worldbank.org/INTCPR/Resources/WP37_web.pdf
>, accessed on 12 June 2011.

22
 McEvoy, “Letting Go of Legalism,” op. cit., p. 19.

23
 Luc Huyse, “Conclusions and Recommendations,” in Luc Huyse and Marc Salter (eds),
Traditional Justice and Reconciliation after Violent Conflict: Learning from African Experiences
(Stockholm: International IDEA, 2008), pp. 185–86, 181–98.

24
 See UNSG,
Report on the Rule of Law
, op. cit.

25
 By “socio-legal fields” I mean structured social spaces.

26
 See Peter Uvin and Charles Mironko, “Western and Local Approaches to Justice in Rwanda,”
Global Governance
, vol. 9, no. 2 (2003), pp. 219–31.

27
 This is often referred to as “stratified concurrent jurisdiction,” whereby the ICTR is entitled but not obliged to exercise jurisdiction to the exclusion of the national court system. The division of labor is such that the Tribunal prosecutes leaders and organizers, whereas more “ordinary” perpetrators are prosecuted at home. See Chandra Lekha Sriram, “Revolutions in Accountability: New Approaches to Past Abuses,”
American University International Law Review
, vol. 19 (2003), pp. 301–428. On the weak rationale for stratified concurrent jurisdiction, see Madeleine H. Morris, “The Trials of Concurrent Jurisdiction: The Case of Rwanda,”
Duke Journal of Comparative and International Law
, vol. 7 (1997), pp. 349–74.

28
 Mohamed M. El Zeidy, “From Primacy to Complementarity and Backwards: (Re)-Visiting Rule 11 Bis of the Ad Hoc Tribunals,”
International & Comparative Law Quarterly
, vol. 57, no. 02 (2008), pp. 403–15.

29
 Drumbl,
Atrocity, Punishment and International Law
, op. cit., p. 139.

30
 Ibid., pp. 139–40.

31
 National Service of Gacaca Jurisdictions, “Context or historical background of Gacaca Courts,” (n. d.), available at <
www.inkiko-gacaca.gov.rw/En/Generaties.htm
>, accessed 13 June 2011.

32
 See Susan Thomson and Rosemary Nagy, “Law, Power and Justice: What Legalism Fails to Address in the Functioning of Rwanda’s
Gacaca
Courts,”
International Journal of Transitional Justice
, vol. 5, no. 1 (2011), pp. 11–30; Lars Waldorf, “Mass Justice for Mass Atrocity: Rethinking Local Justice as Transitional Justice,”
Temple Law Review
, vol. 79, no. 1 (2006), pp. 1–87; Susanne Buckley-Zistel, “‘We are Pretending Peace’— Local Memory and the Absence of Social Transformation and Reconciliation in Rwanda,” in Phil Clark and Zachary D. Kaufman (eds),
After Genocide: Transitional Justice, Post-conflict Reconstruction and Reconciliation in Rwanda and Beyond
(New York: Columbia University Press, 2009), pp. 125–44; Phil Clark, “Hybridity, Holism, and ‘Traditional’ Justice: The Case of the Gacaca Courts in Post-Genocide Rwanda,”
George Washington International Law Review
, vol. 39 (2007), pp. 765; Max Rettig, “Gacaca: Truth, Justice and Reconciliation in Post-Conflict Rwanda,”
African Studies Review
, vol. 51, no. 3 (2008), pp. 22–50; Bert Ingelaere, “The Gacaca Courts in Rwanda,” in Luc Huyse and Marc Salter (eds),
Traditional Justice and Reconciliation after Violent Conflict: Learning from African Experiences
(International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance, 2008), pp. 24–59; African Rights,
Gacaca Justice: A Shared Responsibility
(2003). See also the series of reports by Penal Reform International at <
www.penalreform.org
> as well as the Rwandan government’s
gacaca
website at <
www.inkiko-gacaca.gov.rw
>.

33
 Inkiko-Gacaca website, “Objectives,” at <
www.inkiko-gacaca.gov.rw/En/EnObjectives.htm
> accessed 22 July 2010. On the coercive aspects of these expectations, see Thomson and Nagy, “Law, Power and Justice,” op. cit.; Ingelaere, “The Gacaca Courts in Rwanda,” op. cit.

34
 Rosemary Nagy, “Whose Justice? Gacaca, National Trials and the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda,” in Joanna R. Quinn (ed.),
Reconciliation(s): Transitional Justice in Post-conflict Societies
(Kingston, ON: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2009).

35
 Amnesty International, “Gacaca: A Question of Justice” (2002), available at
<
www.amnesty.org/en/library/info/AFR47/007/2002
>
, accessed 17 August 2011; Kenneth Roth and Alison Des Forges, “Justice or Therapy?”
Boston Review
, vol. 27, no. 3–4 (2002), available at <
http://bostonreview.net/BR27.3/rothdesForges.html
>, accessed 17 August 2011.

36
 Ariel Meyerstein, “Between Law and Culture: Rwanda’s
Gacaca
and Postcolonial Legality,”
Law & Social Inquiry
, vol. 32, no. 2 (2007), pp. 467–508. See also Anuradha Chakravarty, “Gacaca Courts in Rwanda: Explaining Divisions within the Human Rights Community,”
Yale Journal of International Affairs
, vol. 1, no. 2 (2006), pp. 132–45.

37
 E.g. Timothy Longman, “Justice at the Grassroots? Gacaca Trials in Rwanda,” in Naomi Roht-Arriaza and Javier Mariezcurrena (eds),
Transitional Justice in the Twenty-First Century
(New York: Cambridge University Press, 2006), pp. 206–28; Meyerstein, “Between Law and Culture,” pp. 467–508; Clark, “Hybridity, Holism, and ‘Traditional’ Justice,” p. 765. Certainly, these authors are aware of
gacaca
’s potential for social control; however, they chose to respond largely within the terms of the legalist critique. Longman now seems less optimistic: see Timothy Longman, “An Assessment of Rwanda’s
Gacaca
Courts,”
Peace Review
, vol. 21, no. 3 (2009), pp. 303–12.

38
 Local government official quoted in
Penal Reform International
(
PRI
), PRI Research Team on Gacaca Report III (2002), p. 23.

39
 See Amnesty International, “Rwanda Country Report” (2011), available at <
www.amnesty.org/en/region/rwanda/report-2011
>, accessed 13 June 2011; Nyamwasa, General Kayumba
et al
., “Rwanda Briefing” (August 2010), available at <
http://rwandinfo.com/documents/Rwanda_Briefing_August2010_nyamwasa-et-al.pdf
>, accessed 11 June 2011; Susan M. Thomson, “Collateral Damage,”
Mail and Guardian
, 20 July 2010, available at <
http://za.mg.co.za/article/2010-07-20-collateral-damage
>, accessed 20 July 2010; Kenneth Roth, “The Power of Horror in Rwanda,”
Los Angeles Times
(11 April 2009), available at <
www.hrw.org/en/news/2009/04/11/power-horror-rwanda
>, accessed 1 July 2010; Filip Reyntjens, “Post-1994 Politics in Rwanda: Problematising ‘Liberation’ and ‘Democratisation’,”
Third World Quarterly
, vol. 27, no. 6 (2006), pp. 1103–17.

40
 See Paul Gready, “Civil Society and Policy-making in Rwanda: A Case Study of Land Reform and the Gacaca Courts,” London School of Economics, available at <
www.lse.ac.uk/collections/NGPA/publications/WP32_Rwanda_Gready_Web.pdf
>, accessed 17 August 2011; Eugenia Zorbas, “‘Keep Out of our Affairs’: How the Post-genocide Government in Rwanda Manages Relations with Donors” paper presented at International Studies Association, Chicago, 2007.

41
 Ingelaere, “The Gacaca Courts in Rwanda,” op. cit., p. 53.

42
 Bert Ingelaere, “Do We Understand Life after Genocide? Center and Periphery in the Construction of Knowledge in Postgenocide Rwanda,”
African Studies Review
, vol. 53, no. 1 (2010), pp. 41–59.

43
 Thomson and Nagy, “Law, Power and Justice,” op. cit., p. 12; Ingelaere, “The Gacaca Courts in Rwanda,” op. cit.

44
 See Prison Reform International,
The Contribution of the Gacaca Jurisdictions To Resolving Cases Arising from the Genocide
(22 July 2010), available at <
www.penalreform.org/publications/final-monitoring-and-research-report-gacaca-process
>, p. 45, accessed 22 July 2010.

45
 Ingelaere, “The Gacaca Courts in Rwanda,” op. cit., p. 55.

46
 Nigel Eltringham,
Accounting for Horror: Post-Genocide Debates in Rwanda
(London, England: Pluto Press, 2004), p. 145; see also Ingelaere, “The Gacaca Courts in Rwanda,” op. cit., p. 56.