Mother and baby homes: What is ‘transitional justice’?

Transitional justice aims to address large-scale past human rights abuses though judicial and non-judicial measures.

It was first developed with the establishment of the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg after the Second World War and the trials of Japanese soldiers at the Tokyo Tribunal.

However, it can include criminal prosecutions, truth commissions, reparations programmes, and various kinds of institutional reforms as well as criminal prosecutions. Transitional justice attempts to confront impunity; seek effective redress; and prevent any recurrence of similar violations. Truth commissions have often been used as part of the process to allow society learn from the past.

Archbishop Desmond Tutu with fellow commissioners listen to testimony from witnesses during the start of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission for South Africa.

Possibly the most famous was the truth commission in post-apartheid South Africa. Victims were invited to give statements but perpetrators could give testimony and request amnesty from civil and criminal prosecution. Much of this commission was televised.

Reparations for human rights violations can also form part of the process. For example, from 1996 to 2008, the Chilean government paid more than $1.6bn in pensions to victims of the Pinochet regime. A healthcare program for survivors was also set up and an official apology was issued by the president.

However, different initiatives and activities have been used to help promote dialogue including though arts and culture.

An exhibition in the Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum of portrait of the victims in the torture center in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, an example of a Museum of Memory.

The Museum of Memory and Human Rights in Argentina is dedicated to remembering the awful atrocities carried out during the Dirty War between 1976 and 1983. It is housed in one of the 400 detention and torture camps that were set up by the military junta and acts as a public memorial to the disappeared.

In Chile a similar museum commemorates the victims of human rights violations during the civic-military regime led by Augusto Pinochet between 1973 and 1990.

Taiwan is currently going through a transitional justice process. The minister of culture will next month begin a series of activities including seminars, film festivals and exhibitions to mark the 70th anniversary of the 228 Incident. The 228 Incident began with an anti-government uprising in Taiwan that was violently suppressed by the Kuomintang-led Republic of China government, and saw tens of thousands of civilians killed.