Transitional Justice and Societal Reconciliation in Iraq after 2003: Reasons and Effects

Abstract

Transitional justice is one of the important and necessary topics that recently started taking a large and significant place in the field of humanities, as it is closely related to the process of democratic political transition and the treatment of human rights issues. As such, Transitional Justice designates that countries that have suffered from conflicts, or those which have witnessed the rule of a repressive authoritarian regime should uphold the principles of transitional justice following the end of those governments and conflicts. Those principles, in turn, are mainly based on: holding those who commit abuses and violations responsible; cleansing the state’s institutions from those who have been involved in committing crimes, and reforming these institutions in order to ensure that such violations do not happen in the future; serving justice to the victims and their families, as well as commemorating the memory of the martyrs, in order to achieve reconciliation among all the people of the various backgrounds. It has become essential to address transitional justice as a way to ensure the success the democratic transition process, and address past violations.