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Justice Mechanisms and the Question of Legitimacy: The Example of Rwanda's Multi-layered Justice Mechanisms

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Building a Future on Peace and Justice

Legitimacy, this contribution argues, plays a key role in connecting transitional justice mechanisms to sustainable peace, and strengthening people's perceptions of legitimacy should be of concern to all those involved in these institutions. Here, it is important to take an empirical, people-based approach to legitimacy, with regard for its dynamic quality. This approach should focus on all three dimensions of legitimacy: the input into transitional justice mechanisms, the popular adherence to the demos that sets them up, and their output. In addition, legitimacy requires an explicit deliberation by means of justificatory discourse, and the involvement of all stakeholders. Drawing on the example of Rwanda's multi-layered justice mechanisms this model then draws attention to the processes through which various internal and external actors can seek to (de)legitimate transitional justice institutions, and what this entails for the legitimacy of these mechanisms in general.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Roosevelt Academy/Utrecht University, Lange Noordstraat 1 4330 CB , Middelburg, The Netherlands

    Barbara Oomen

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  1. Barbara Oomen
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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Head Department for Foreign and International Criminal Law Chair for Criminal Law, Criminal Procedure Comparative Law and International Criminal Law Judge at the State Court, University of Göttingen, Platz der Göttinger Sieben 5, Göttingen, 37073, Germany

    Kai Ambos

  2. The Richardson Institute, Lancaster University, Bailrigg, Lancaster, LA1 4YD, United Kingdom

    Judith Large

  3. Director, Prosecutions Program, International Center of Transitional Justice, 5 Hanover Square, Floor 24, New York, NY, 10004, USA

    Marieke Wierda

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Oomen, B. (2009). Justice Mechanisms and the Question of Legitimacy: The Example of Rwanda's Multi-layered Justice Mechanisms. In: Ambos, K., Large, J., Wierda, M. (eds) Building a Future on Peace and Justice. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-85754-9_7

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