'Transnational Justice and Forced Migration'

Beyond Agreements

Chapter 5 is by Fabio Andrés Díaz Pabón (alumni 2015). Fabio is currently doing his PhD at ISS, where his Promoter is Professor Mansoob Murshed. His chapter is entitled simply 'Beyond Agreements'.

In this chapter, he demonstrates that simulation models, and in particular system dynamics models, could be a cheap and efficient way of examining policies that could allow public servants and service providers to learn and evaluate the different scenarios they are facing in delivering transitional justice remedies.

In particular, he concentrates on the simulation and resultant evaluation of possible alternatives to be considered in relation to the reparation and restitution of land rights for the victims of forced displacement in Colombia.

To this end, this chapter first presents a brief description of the phenomenon of forced displacement in Colombia and its impact on the society as a whole, thus highlighting the nature of the challenge for government institutions in tackling the results of decades-long conflict in the country.

Legal Justice and Victim Reparation in the African Great Lakes Region

Another chapter in the same volume, by Helen Hintjens (ISS staff) and Jackson Odong (ISS alumnus), is entitled: 'Perspectives on Legal Justice and Victim Reparations in the Diasporic African Great Lakes Region'. 

This chapter, through examples from the Great Lakes region, investigates connections and disconnections between transitional justice (legal, distributive and restorative) and the forced displacement of people, including the victims of war crimes, genocide and mass atrocities.

The chapter includes an inquiry into how punishment of perpetrators is related to reparation for victims, drawing on specific examples from the African Great Lakes region. The authors also draw attention to the fact that how transitional justice processes may be designed or promoted by Western donors is not how they may be perceived and experienced locally by those most immediately involved, whether they are the perpetrators, professionals, victims, or wider communities. This is especially true when, as in the African Great Lakes region, such populations are in conditions of continuous and repeated internal and cross-border conflict and displacement.