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In the summer of 2009, ICTJ’s Research Unit completed a major research project on the relationship between transitional justice and development, two fields that until now have proceeded in isolation from one another. In May 2009, In May, Pablo de Greiff and Roger Duthie sat down with Philip Alston to discuss some of the project’s main conclusions.

After periods of extended political conflict and of repression or state terrorism, there is an active political struggle about the meaning of what occurred. This paper illustrates some processes through which silenced or hidden ethnic, cultural or gender dimensions come to light during the unfolding of violent conflicts and factor into remembrance in the aftermath of conflict.

International and hybrid jurisdictions have been created in response to the commission of heinous international crimes: genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes, including mass rape. This article shows that, by their legal definitions, genocide and crimes against humanity are linked to identity, as their core constitutive elements require targeting specific human groups on discriminatory grounds.

Trials re-enact periods of violence and state repression in order to submit them to authoritative judgment. The legal judgment is, however, only one aspect of such trials, which have broader educational and transformative goals. The question posed in this paper is whether or not trials for systematic or massive abuse have effects for the politicized identities that were at the heart of the violence, and that may still be operative in the post-repression period.

This paper explores how enforcement of international criminal law currently addresses socioeconomic and environmental crimes. It specifically examines current efforts to promote accountability for: (1) environmental war crimes and (2) property crimes and expropriation. The paper then engages in a normative discussion of whether increased judicialization of environmental war crimes and property crimes is a worthwhile pursuit for those committed to accountability, prevention, transition, and development.

This paper makes explicit some of the connections between transitional justice and development, two sprawling fields characterized by fuzzy conceptual borders and by both internal and external dissent. Taking seriously the idea of connecting, however, also means preserving the integrity of that which is being linked. The paper is therefore also interested in drawing certain boundaries around each-not just for reasons of clarity, but in the belief that effective synergies depend upon sensible divisions of labor.

Development theory and practice to date has not engaged extensively with transitional justice. This paper explores tentative pathways to conceive of how development and transitional justice practices connect-from a development practitioner's point of view.

Authoritarian regimes frequently leave in their wake a series of negative legacies that have not received sufficient attention in the literature on transitions, and even less by transitional justice measures. This paper examines the political economy of transitions from authoritarianism. In particular, it looks at the economic legacies of authoritarianism-unproductive expenditures, undisciplined rent-seeking, and macroeconomic destabilization-and their implications for democratization and transitional justice.

Contemporary societies find it very difficult to bring about qualitative and systemic changes. This affects development and transitional justice processes in similar ways, for both practices seek to bring about precisely such changes; the shared challenge is a link between the two fields that has yet to be considered. This paper explores the relationship between transitional justice and development from the perspective of truth commissions, considering both their experience and reflections on their role.

Reparations and development are generally conceptualized and approached independently, but for survivors and victims the demand for both often arises simultaneously. In practice, reparations and development are linked in specific ways. This paper analyzes these links in the context of the period following an armed conflict or a political transition.