Book Review: Research Handbook on Transitional Justice

AuthorRossella Pulvirenti
Published date01 December 2018
Date01 December 2018
DOIhttp://doi.org/10.1177/2032284418808926
Subject MatterBook Reviews
implementation and the limitations of the International Criminal Court (ICC) that permeate the
preceding chapters with practical solutions drawing from the practice of the International Com-
mission against Impunity in Guatemala and the Inter-American Human Rights System. The per-
spective adopted is responsive to context rather than reliant upon a system of international criminal
law which inadequately fits the cases examined. Charles Chernor Jalloh’s closing chapter reintro-
duces the taxonomic considerations of the first part, working through an analytical framework for
the classification of crimes drawing from Bassiouni’s efforts to clarify international crimes as a
concept. The material jurisdiction of the African Court of Human and People’s Rights over crimes
is then explored as a means of moving beyond a view that frames the border between transnational
and international crime as impermeable to a ‘richer and more nuanced conception of what we
consider international criminal law’.
Harmen van der Wilt’s opening chapter frames the text’s subtitle as a question – ‘towards an
integrative approach?’ Overall, this query is a more accurate reflection of the contributions in the
overall text, in which the theoretical and procedural boundaries between transnational and inter-
national crimes are varyingly deconstructed and affirmed. For the most part, authors accept the
differential ‘moral weighting’ between the international and transnational crimes, arguing for the
elevation of certain transnational crimes to the international level in defined circumstances without
necessarily contesting the hierarchical arrangement of such crimes. Yet the conscious recognition
of some overlap – particularly in the analysis concerning the crime of terrorism – and perhaps a
continuum on which different crimes may exist from the purely national through transnational to
the international, signals a more complicated relationship. Practical and procedural justifications
for the placement of crimes between the different categories illustrate the inadequacy of the simple
moral hierarchy as an explanation of the different regimes, and Charles Chernor Jalloh’s closing
argument for a system of international criminality which can respond to different kinds of crim-
inality echoes this call for a more nuanced perspective of the two separate ‘silos that are in reality
better considered together’.
Research Handbook on Transitional Justice, Cheryl Lawther, Luke Moffett and Dov Jacobs (eds.) (Cheltenham:
Edward Elgar Publishing, 2017), ISBN 978-1-78195-530-7, 576 pp., £45
Reviewed by: Rossella Pulvirenti, Liverpool John M oore University, U K
DOI: 10.1177/2032284418808926
The Research Handbook on Transitional Justice edited by Cheryl Lawther, Luke Moffett and
Dov Jacobs is a comprehensive study on transitional justice. The book is divided into four
parts. Part I, called ‘Concepts’, addresses the theoretical development and challenges of
transitional justice. Part II focuses on the actors of transitional justice, while Part III and
IV, respectively, cover both the mechanism of transitional justice and also the practice of
transitional justice.
The book adopts an interdisciplinary approach in order to study the mechanisms and the
processeslinkedtothefieldoftransitional justice. Indeed, it not only focuses on the legal
perspective but, due to the diversified expertise of its authors, provides insights into the fields
of criminology, sociology, theology, history, anthropology, philosophy and development studies,
508 New Journal of European Criminal Law 9(4)

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