State-Level Effects of Transitional Justice: What Do We Know?

International Journal of Transitional Justice 4:3 (November 2010), pp. 329-354 Abstract: At the core of policy debates on the state-level effects of transitional justice is a series of competing claims about the causal effects of various transitional justice mechanisms. A review of recent scholarship on transitional justice shows that empirical evidence of positive or negative effects is still insufficient to support strong claims. More systematic and comparative analysis of the transitional justice record is needed in order to move from ‘faith-based’ to ‘fact-based’ discussions of transitional justice impacts.