Post-Conflict Justice and Legal Traditions: A New Conceptual Framework

Transitional justice seeks to deal with legacies of the most brutal conflicts and political transitions within states; however, there is no one-size-fits-all approach. Post-conflict justice, as a subset of transitional justice, is concerned with justice mechanisms in the wake of armed conflict. Despite a growing literature exploring the conceptualization and effectiveness of transitional justice, less attention has been paid to the factors influencing the decision to adopt transitional justice and choice of mechanism(s). Further, theoretical understandings of how these choices ultimately contribute to the broader goals of justice, truth, and peace are limited. This study proposes domestic legal traditions as an explanatory factor influencing the pursuit of post-conflict justice. More specifically, I expect to find that states have preferred, or congruent post-conflict justice mechanisms based on their domestic legal traditions. To test this relationship, I develop a congruence variable to link domestic legal traditions to post-conflict justice mechanisms. I utilize the Post-Conflict Justice (PCJ) Dataset to test hypotheses regarding adoption and mechanism selection, finding that states prefer specific post-conflict justice mechanisms. More importantly, a survival analysis shows that the implementation of congruent post-conflict justice mechanisms increases the likelihood of longer-lasting peace in the post-conflict period. These findings provide key insights into important factors that can inform policy and best practices when considering the adoption and implementation of post-conflict justice