Building the Rule of Law in Post-Conflict States: International v. Mixed Model of Transitional Justice

Abstract

The transitional justice literature emphasizes the importance of domestic actors in the successful design and implementation of mechanisms such as trials if the rule of law is to meaningfully develop in post-transitional societies. Yet in many post-conflict states the international community is involved in these policies from the beginning. Using a Most Similar System Design to compare the experiences of Bosnia and Herzegovina and Kosovo, which incorporates data from the author’s fieldwork in both countries from 2016–2021, this article finds that expectations in the literature are overstated. Improvements in the rule of law as a result of transitional justice were found when there was a mix of international and domestic participation. Additionally, this analysis proposes a new methodology to categorize transitional justice when the international community and domestic actors are involved in these programs.