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Timing Justice: Lessons From The Tribunals In Yugoslavia, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, And Cambodia, Zoe B. Whaley

Political Science Honors Projects

Scholarship on tribunals for mass human rights violations overlooks how the presence or absence of conflict influences its effectiveness. I argue that implementing a tribunal during conflict undermines its ability to effectively pursue justice—as I demonstrate with a case study of the Yugoslav Tribunal. Ongoing conflict makes challenges of transitional justice more acute. The absence of conflict eases a tribunal’s ability to carry out certain necessary activities such as collecting evidence. I demonstrate this using a case study of the Rwanda Tribunal. Examining tribunals in Sierra Leone and Cambodia suggests that hybrid structures influence the effectiveness of these accountability mechanisms.