Beyond Retribution: Truth and Reconciliation in South Africa as Universal Paradigm for Restorative Transitional Justice

This paper examines the articulation of Ubuntu as a traditional African form of justice and how it was deployed to legitimize the Transition and Reconciliation Commission (TRC), as a restorative transitional justice model within and beyond post-apartheid South Africa. Transitional justice here refers to judicial and non-judicial measures implemented to redress legacies of human rights abuses in the aftermath of conflict and repression. It seeks recognition and justice for victims while promoting peace and reconciliation. In the final analysis, it is observed that the deployment of ubuntu in both the context of the TRC and socioeconomic rights jurisprudence represents a vernacularisation process that has served to legitimize universal human rights in South Africa. It also marks a distinctive South African and African normative contribution to the discourse on human dignity and the global fulfilment of universal human rights