The UN Secretary General defined transitional justice as “the full range of processes and mechanisms associated with a society’s attempts to come to terms with a legacy of large-scale past abuses, in order to ensure accountability, serve justice and achieve reconciliation”. In conflict and post-conflict societies the process of coming to terms with the past and fostering an ethical community is a vital step in the path towards a (re)building stable social order. The philosophical discussion on transitional justice explores this process and questions which methods and mechanisms are most appropriate, justified or morally correct. Despite the relatively recent origin of the philosophical debate on transitional justice an impressive body of literature has grown up around the topic.
