Delivering Justice in the Wake of Mass Violence: New Approaches to Transitional Justice
1 Erica Harper (B. Com, LLB Hons) is a doctoral candidate at the Faculty of Law at the University of Melbourne, Australia (expected December 2004).
This article focuses on the challenges associated with delivering justice to populations which have suffered large-scale past abuses. In particular, given the plethora of transitional justice ‘models’ now available, what criteria should governing or transitional authorities use when deciding between domestic, international and hybrid courts? The context is a case study of one of the United Nations’ (UN) most recent and extensive transitional justice projects. In 1999, the UN Security Council endowed the UN Transitional Administration in East Timor (UNTAET) with wide powers of legal governance and administration.1 Among its responsibilities, UNTAET was tasked with developing a judicial framework through which to process the large number of international crimes perpetrated during Indonesia’s occupation of East Timor and in the lead up to international intervention. How UNTAET undertook this task, the problems that were encountered and whether such problems were resolved provide important insights into the nature of international intervention and conflict management. These lessons learned should be incorporated into the current discourse on how the UN should proceed in future missions where transitional justice is a stated priority.
The information presented in this article draws upon the results of a two-year field research project conducted primarily in the District of Covalima, East Timor. It is shown that the United Nations must look to national constituencies and the population at large, as well as recent developments in international law and practice, when deciding upon the mix of legal mechanisms that will best suit the nature of the conflict, the existing legal culture and the political and socioeconomic context of the society in question.