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This chapter focuses on aspects of community restorative justice practices in Northern Ireland that have been central in challenging embedded cultures of violence within the current transitional context. It is argued that a strict adherence to restorative justice values, in combination with a flexible approach to the process used, are two core strengths of practice that have facilitated such a possibility. Moreover, these grassroots initiatives work well with organised, structured, and hierarchical communities, which in the Northern Irish context translate to paramilitary organisations. They are arguably less effective in relation to looser community structures, such as vigilante groups and individual violent responses to crime and conflict.

The paper articulates common organizing narratives which recur within alternative movements in law, and posits the art of dispute resolution as an experimental reconstructive methodology for engaging conflicts, while incorporating a critique of classical liberal thought. The paper offers a reading of conflict resolution approaches, including Alternative Dispute Resolution; Therapeutic Jurisprudence; Restorative Justice, and Transitional Justice, in search of a new legal culture or jurisprudence which emerges from the following narratives: emphasis on process; emphasis on constructive conflict intervention; deconstruction and hybridization; a search for an underlying layer; emphasis on relationship and acknowledgment of emotions; community work and bottom-up development.

Despite a global consensus that rule of law is desirable, there are important debates about what this entails and how it can be achieved or supported in developing and transitional countries of the Global South. Accordingly, this chapter considers the importance and contextual suitability of rule of law as a building block for ‘peaceful and inclusive societies’ in the context of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG). We begin by examining key definitional debates and consider the challenges inherent to monitoring progress towards SDG target 16.3 which seeks to ‘promote the rule of law at the national and international levels, and ensure equal access to justice for all’. We proceed to illustrate some of these definitional and methodological limitations by considering how favourable rankings of model Western democracies mask rule of law deficits that relate to access to justice and the protection of human rights for marginalised populations. This critique highlights an important point that is repeatedly emphasised throughout the rule of law literature: rule of law is not an end state but rather an ideal that all countries must continuously work to realise and sustain. The remainder of the chapter considers the challenges of promoting a Western rule of law agenda in a failed and titular democracy (the Solomon Islands) and a peaceful and prosperous country (Singapore) which adheres to a ‘thin’ definition of the rule of law that does not conform with liberal ideals.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the case for a truth and reconciliation (T&R) process in the context of mental health services.

The approach is a conceptual review of T&R approaches; a consideration of why they are important; and how they might be applied in the context of mental health services and psychiatry. First, the paper sets out a case for T&R in psychiatry, giving some recent examples of how this might work in practice. Then it outlines potential objections which complicate any simplistic adoption of T&R in this context.

In the absence of an officially sanctioned T&R process a grassroots reparative initiative in mental health services may be an innovative bottom-up approach to transitional justice. This would bring together service users, survivors and refusers of services, with staff who work/ed in them, to begin the work of healing the hurtful effects of experiences in the system.

This is the first paper in a peer-reviewed journal to explore the case for T&R in mental health services. The authors describe an innovative T&R process as an important transitional step towards accomplishing reparation and justice by acknowledging the breadth and depth of service user and survivor grievances. This may be a precondition for effective alliances between workers and service users/survivors. As a result, new forms of dialogic communication and horizontal democracy might emerge that could sustain future alliances and prefigure the social relations necessary for more humane mental health services.

This paper aims to examine the growing incidence of judicialisation of politics in Nigeria's democratisation experience against the backdrop of questionable judicial accountability.

The article draws on legal and political theory as well as comparative law perspectives.

The judiciary faces a daunting task in deepening democracy and (re) instituting the rule of law. The formidable challenges derive in part from structural problems within the judiciary, deficient accountability credentials and the complexities of a troubled transition.

Effective judicial mediation of political transition requires a transformed and accountable judiciary.

The article calls attention to the need for judicial accountability as a cardinal and integral part of political transitions.

Since taking power in July 1994, the RPF government has strived to eliminate the Hutu/Tutsi identities from public discourse, replacing the previous divisive identities with a unified nationalist one. For those who use Hutu/Tutsi identities outside the context of the genocide, they are considered genocidaire sympathisers, negationists and spreading divisionism. However, within the context of the genocide, the role of “ethnicity” is being reinforced and reaffirming ethnic divisions. In 2008, the Rwandan parliament officially changed the 1994 Rwandan genocide to the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi. Based on ethnographic data collected from March until October 2008, this paper will argue that within the public discourse on the genocide, the victim/perpetrator dichotomy has become intertwined with the Tutsi/Hutu identities, creating a hierarchy of victimhood. It will explore how through the process of reconciliation and in particular through gacaca the Hutu and Tutsi identities are imbued with collective guilt and victimization.

Some of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) adopted by the United Nations (UN) General Assembly are related to violence, crime and crime control issues. In what seems to be an innovative approach, the so-called ‘international community’ has seemed to reach the commonsensical agreement that, in order to enjoy sustainable development and strengthen the capabilities, well-being and freedom of the citizens of the global south, their governments must reduce violence and crime (SDG 16.1). The SDGs also seem to provide the response to tackle crime and violence in the global south. SDG 16.3 aims at ‘promoting the rule of Law at the national and international level and ensuring equal access to justice for all’. Thus, the promotion of the rule of law has commonly been understood as the strengthening of the criminal justice system and State security forces to reduce crime and impunity in the global south. Focussing on Latin America, this article will critically discuss the problematic presuppositions and implications of such a paradigm, which tends to impose, reproduce and legitimise the particular worldviews of global north countries and institutions. This approach is counterproductive, for it does not acknowledge the particularities and historical trajectories of Latin American countries, while naturalising specific global north political, economic and truth regimes.

The International Criminal Court has institutionalized the concept of individual responsibility for human rights violations. The jurisprudence of international criminal law has developed along with the institution. Affirmative defenses in the mitigation of punishment or avoidance of responsibility are becoming increasingly important in international criminal procedure. We contend that diminished culpability based on advances in neuroscience provides the most challenging set of choices for the international legal community. Of the variety of affirmative defenses, emerging neuroscience-based defense provide the most challenging set of choices for the international legal community. The Esad Landzo case at the ICTY brings these challenges into focus. We discuss the difficult choices the International Criminal Court will have to make to balance the rights and needs of the victims and the due process rights of the accused.