Supporting Implementation of the 2015 EU Transitional Justice Policy Framework

The EU and its Member States provide a range of support – both directly and indirectly – to transitional justice processes and mechanisms in partner countries. Such support remains critical as instability, democratic backsliding and the proliferation of internal and external conflicts across the globe present a significant challenge to fundamental EU values.

This report, commissioned by the Team Europe Democracy Secretariat and drafted by UpRights, affirms that the EU TJ Policy Framework continues to serve as a high-level policy tool designed to address past violations and abuses, prevent the recurrence of crises and address the most serious crimes of concern to the international community.

In order to ensure its effective implementation, however, a number of concrete recommendations have been developed based on selected case studies to ensure more effective support by the EU and Member States to partner countries. These recommendations include:

• Accurately assessing and promoting nationally and locally owned transitional justice processes, including ensuring their legitimacy and genuineness and commitment to meaningful participation of victims;
• Ensuring support to non-governmental, informal processes, particularly those led b civil society and victim-driven initiatives;
• While recognising the importance of criminal justice, avoiding an over-emphasis on such processes at the expense of a balanced approach that incorporates trauma healing, truth seeking, memorialization, reconciliation, reparations, security sector reform and disarmament, demobilization and reintegration;
• Ensuring both early, and long-term, engagement regardless of whether national authorities have initiated formal processes;
• Placing victims and affected communities – with particular attention to traditionally excluded and marginalised groups – at the centre of design and implementation of transitional justice processes;
• Integrating mental health and psychosocial support to victims and affected communities, and gender transformative approaches, in programming to address the root causes of violence;

In order to ensure the above recommendations are implemented, it is critical to sensitise EU and Member States personnel and stakeholders to the content of the framework and promote a less formalistic, more comprehensive understanding of transitional justice that is not limited to formal, government-led processes.

Finally, transitional justice must be seen as deeply relevant to related EU and Member States strategic interests, including crisis response, conflict prevention, peacebuilding and development, rather than being limited exclusively to human rights activities.

For more on this topic, the UpRights interview at this link examines these different findings and their connection to democracy.