Transitional Justice and Security System Reform

Transitional justice and security sector reform grew up as separate disciplines. One asks how a society comes to terms with mass atrocity; the other asks how to rebuild the army, police and courts that a war has broken or corrupted. Research published in 2009 and 2010 by a European Commission-funded peacebuilding research consortium, including work by Laura Davis for the International Center for Transitional Justice (ICTJ) and by Karen Barnes on inclusive security institutions, argued that the two agendas succeed or fail together. Abusive institutions cannot credibly deliver justice, and justice processes that leave those institutions untouched invite repetition.

The stakes are practical. In post-conflict states, the very forces meant to protect civilians are often among the worst perpetrators of violence against them. Reforming them is not only a technical exercise in training and equipment; it is a test of whether the new order differs from the old one in ways citizens can feel.

What transitional justice covers

The UN Secretary-General’s 2010 guidance note defines transitional justice as the full range of processes and mechanisms associated with a society’s attempt to come to terms with a legacy of large-scale past abuses, in order to ensure accountability, serve justice and achieve reconciliation. The UN’s rule of law framework and practitioners such as the ICTJ group these efforts into four main approaches:

• Criminal prosecution of at least those bearing the greatest responsibility for war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide, through domestic, hybrid or international courts;
• Truth-seeking, typically through commissions that investigate periods of abuse and recommend remedies;
• Reparations programmes that repair the material and moral damage done to victims; and
• Reform of public institutions, particularly the army, police and judiciary, from instruments of repression into instruments of public service.

These mechanisms are mutually reinforcing rather than competing. Even the International Criminal Court, the flagship of international justice, prosecutes only a handful of cases and formally endorses complementary measures. The ICC Office of the Prosecutor stated in its 2007 policy paper that domestic prosecutions, truth-seeking, reparations programmes and institutional reform all play a complementary role in closing the impunity gap that trials alone cannot close.

Where the two agendas meet: justice-sensitive reform

The fourth strand, institutional reform, is where transitional justice and security sector reform become the same conversation. The 2009-2010 research described a “justice-sensitive” approach to reforming the security system: one that aims to prevent recurrence of violations by transforming abusive institutions and instilling accountability for past abuses, not merely by making them more efficient.

In practice, a justice-sensitive approach to building a security system adds several elements to conventional reform programmes:

• Vetting to remove human rights violators from the army, police and judiciary, so that new institutions are not staffed by the authors of past abuse;
• Disciplinary and oversight mechanisms that make misconduct costly rather than routine;
• Integrity and legitimacy measures that change the institution’s relationship with the population it serves; and
• Citizen empowerment, so that victims become rights-bearing citizens who know, use and enforce their entitlements.

Reforming abusive institutions is important in itself, the research concluded, but it may also be a necessary pre-condition for other transitional justice and democracy-building approaches to succeed.

Timing matters as much as design. Where a post-conflict settlement becomes a power-sharing bargain between former belligerents, each defending its gains, impunity for past violations can become institutionalised and later reform grows harder. Integrating justice-sensitive reform into disarmament, demobilisation and reintegration early on helps prevent a culture of impunity from taking root inside the new security forces from day one. The Democratic Republic of Congo illustrates both the need and the difficulty; the journal examines that case in its study of justice-sensitive security system reform in the DRC.

Building an inclusive security sector

The companion research on inclusive security institutions pushed the argument one level deeper. Security sector reform, it found, tends to be discussed, defined and designed at the national level, while the insecurities people actually experience are local. The seeds of violent conflict are sown at the community level, and marginalised groups often cannot access security services, articulate their concerns, or feel represented by reforms administered from the capital.

Gender runs through this analysis. Women are frequently exposed to physical and sexual violence because they lack access to power and resources, while men face higher risks of gun violence and forced recruitment. Gender-based violence in particular is surrounded by silence and impunity, and support for its survivors is often provided informally by local organisations that formal reform programmes never reach. Police stations and courts may be more than a day’s journey from the communities where violence occurs. Without parallel reform of the legal and judicial system, reporting a crime of sexual violence achieves little, which is why the research insisted that justice reform is an inseparable component of any security system building effort. The evidence behind this position is set out in the journal’s synthesis of gender and peacebuilding research, and the Liberian case study on gender and transitional justice in Liberia shows what it means for truth-seeking in practice.

Oversight closes the loop. Parliaments, government bodies and civil society all have roles in monitoring how security institutions behave, yet few women’s organisations had traditionally engaged with the security sector and many lacked the technical expertise to do so. Building that capacity, including outside capital cities, was among the research’s core recommendations. Standards and toolkits for democratic security sector governance are now maintained by institutions such as DCAF, the Geneva Centre for Security Sector Governance.

The European Union’s unfinished policy

Both studies addressed the EU because of its weight in post-conflict reconstruction. By 2010 the EU and its member states were the largest contributors of financial and technical assistance to the ICC, the 2008 European Security Strategy report had called for the court to grow in effectiveness alongside broader efforts on international justice, and the European Commission had established a Transitional Justice facility in 2008 for rapid, flexible funding. The Stockholm Programme of December 2009 declared the Union “an area of shared values, values which are incompatible with crimes against humanity, genocide and war crimes”.

Yet the research found no EU policy or agreed approach to transitional justice as such. Commitments were scattered across foreign policy declarations, funding instruments and crisis-management concepts, with no operational guidance connecting prosecutions, truth-seeking, reparations and institutional reform. The recommendation was for the EU to develop a strategic approach that drew on member states’ own experience of dealing with difficult pasts, from post-war Europe to the transitions from authoritarian rule in Spain, Portugal, Greece and Central and Eastern Europe. That gap was eventually addressed in 2015, when the Council adopted the EU’s Policy Framework on Support to Transitional Justice. The fuller story of how EU institutions engaged with the field is told in the journal’s article on the European Union and transitional justice.

Why the connection still matters

A decade and a half later, the core finding has aged well. Security assistance that ignores accountability keeps producing forces that citizens fear rather than trust, and transitional justice processes that stop at trials or truth reports keep leaving the machinery of abuse intact. The research’s practical checklist, vetting, oversight, gender analysis, community consultation and early integration with DDR, remains a fair standard against which to judge any programme that claims to be building a security system after conflict. How people themselves define their security needs, and how providers can respond, is the subject of the companion piece on responding to people’s security needs, with further coverage across the journal’s security and justice section.

Frequently asked questions

What is the relationship between transitional justice and security sector reform?

Institutional reform is one of the four main mechanisms of transitional justice, and the security sector is usually the institution most in need of it. A justice-sensitive approach to SSR uses vetting, oversight and accountability measures to prevent the recurrence of abuses, making SSR both a reform programme and a transitional justice mechanism.

What are the four main mechanisms of transitional justice?

Criminal prosecutions of those most responsible for international crimes; truth-seeking, often through truth commissions; reparations programmes for victims; and reform of public institutions, particularly the army, police and judiciary. The UN and ICTJ stress that these work best in combination rather than in isolation.

What does justice-sensitive security system reform mean?

It means reforming security institutions with the explicit aim of accountability for past abuse and prevention of future abuse. Key tools include vetting to remove human rights violators, effective disciplinary and oversight mechanisms, and measures that build the institution’s integrity, legitimacy and civic trust.

What is vetting in a post-conflict security sector?

Vetting is the screening of security and justice personnel to remove those responsible for serious human rights violations. It aims to ensure that new institutions are not staffed by perpetrators, which would undermine both their legitimacy and the safety of citizens who must rely on them.

Why is building a security system considered central to peacebuilding?

Because equitable and accessible security provision is a precondition for almost everything else: livelihoods, education, political participation and justice. Where security institutions remain weak, corrupt or abusive, citizens see no difference from wartime, and confidence in the whole post-conflict order erodes.

How does the International Criminal Court relate to transitional justice?

The ICC prosecutes only a small number of those most responsible for the gravest crimes, and only where states are unwilling or genuinely unable to act. Its own prosecution policy endorses domestic trials, truth-seeking, reparations and institutional reform as complementary responses to large-scale abuse.

Why should DDR programmes be linked to justice-sensitive reform?

Disarmament, demobilisation and reintegration often channels ex-combatants into new security forces. Integrating justice-sensitive screening and accountability early prevents a culture of impunity from becoming entrenched in those forces, and balances investment in ex-combatants with attention to their victims.

What role does gender play in security sector reform?

Men and women experience insecurity differently, so reform needs gender analysis, sex-disaggregated data, women’s recruitment and retention in security institutions, and measures against gender-based violence. Without justice-system reform alongside policing reform, crimes of sexual violence are rarely prosecuted.

Did the EU ever adopt a transitional justice policy?

At the time of the 2010 research the EU had funding instruments and political commitments but no agreed approach. In November 2015 the Council adopted the EU’s Policy Framework on Support to Transitional Justice, making the EU the first regional organisation with a dedicated policy of this kind.

Can transitional justice take place in established democracies?

Yes. The mechanisms have been used not only after conflict or authoritarian rule but also by established democracies confronting systematic abuse in their past. Several European states have used prosecutions, truth-seeking, reparations and institutional reform to address legacies ranging from the Second World War to internal conflicts.