Transitional Justice in West Africa

This book explores the challenges of transitional justice in West Africa, specifically how countries in the region have dealt with transitional justice problems in the last 30 years (1990-2020), and how they have managed the process. Using comparative, historical, and legal analyses it examines the politics of justice after violent conflicts in West Africa, the major transitional justice mechanisms established in the region, and how countries have used these institutions to address injustice and the pains of war in some West African countries. The book examines how transitional justice mechanisms have contributed to victims' rights, reconciliation, and peace in transitional societies, and whether transitional justice mechanisms deployed in West Africa were suitable or ill-fitted, and the politics of deploying them. The book is addressed to a wide audience: policymakers, and graduate and post-graduate students of transitional justice, conflict resolution, peace studies, conflict transformation, international criminal law, law and similar subjects. This book will be of great value to academics and researchers, as well as lecturers in tertiary institutions offering relevant courses; legal practitioners; peace practitioners/NGOs; and those working in the field of transitional justice and human rights.

Linus Nnabuike Malu is qualified to practise as a lawyer in Nigeria and New South Wales, Australia. He holds a PhD from the University of New England, Australia, and his areas of research are international justice, transitional justice, and conflict transformation.

1. Introduction 2. Comparative Analysis of Truth and Reconciliation Commissions in West Africa 3. ECOWAS Community Court of Justice, Human Rights and Transitional Justice 4. The Rise and Fall of Charles Taylor: Lessons and Impacts on Peace in Liberia 5. The Special Court for Sierra Leone and Transitional Justice in Sierra Leone 6. Triumph of the Victims: Trial of Hissene Habre at the Extraordinary African Chambers within the Courts of Senegal 7. Distant Justice: The International Criminal Court in West Africa 8. Amnesties and Transitional Justice in West Africa 9. Justice on an Empty Stomach: Transitional Justice and Victims' Rights in West Africa 10. Reconciliation as an Event: Transitional Justice and Reconciliation in West Africa 11. Transitional Justice and Peace in West Africa 12. Conclusion: Big Ideas, Shallow Justice