SOAS Research Online

Abstract

Over the past 25 years, domestic polities and the international cornmunity alike have increasingly confronted a vexing problem: how to deal with perpetrators of past abuses, particularly where those perpetrators cling to power or otherwise may disrupt the peace. This challenge was one primarily faced initially by societies emerging from authoritarian rule or civil war through domestic processes, with or without support from the international community. Later it became a challenge for the international community — how to enforce human rights and humanitarian norms in the wake of gross human rights violations, war crimes, crimes against humanity, or genocide? With the rapid growth of peacekeeping and peacebuilding missions, international assistance has increasingly involved support not only to transitional justice and accountability processes, but also to rebuilding rule of law in societies.