Transitional justice in settled democracies: Northern Ireland and the Basque Country in comparative perspective

This article explores the concept of transitional justice in democratic states dealing with political violence. Although transitional justice was designed for paradigmatic transitions (from war to peace and from dictatorship to democracy), conflicted democracies such as Northern Ireland and the Basque Country could also benefit from this framework which brings a comprehensive human rights approach to the past and promotes the principles of truth, justice, reparation and guarantees of non-repetition. The article compares the transition from conflict in Northern Ireland and the Basque Country. It explores some of the specific features which characterise processes of transitional justice within settled democracies, such as the blurred break with the past, the fragmentation of initiatives aimed at dealing with violence and the mixture of ordinary and transitional justice. As well as contributing to the conceptualisation of the field of transitional justice, the study proposes that the conflict vs. terrorism divide and the clash of narratives associated with it are the key to understanding these types of transitions.