In quest of a sustainable justice: Transitional justice and human security in the Democratic Republic of the Congo

This paper inquires into the dilemmas, challenges and strategic options that define contemporary efforts to establish justice in the DRC.

Emerging from a history marked by coercive rule, failed transition and systemic violations of human rights, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) is currently enjoying an interval of peace. It is an interval in which public demand for justice – for some sort of reckoning with past abuses – threatens to overwhelm fragile prospects for sustainable transition. Yet a variety of dilemmas and obstacles have become evident. The judiciary itself has been party to the conflict, its independence usurped, its infrastructure decimated, and its capacity rendered hopelessly inadequate. Questions abound outside the courts. ‘In quest of a sustainable justice’ inquires into the dilemmas, challenges and strategic options that define contemporary efforts to establish justice amidst the opportunities opening up in the transition of the DRC.

About the author

Tyrone Savage is an independent consultant who is currently attached to Stellenbosch University, Cape Town, and the Institut des Sciences sociales du Politique in Paris. He was formerly Head of Research and Analysis in the Transitional Justice in Africa Programme at the Institute for Justice and Reconciliation in Cape Town, South Africa. A Fulbright Fellow, he holds degrees from Rhodes University, the University of Cape Town and the Maxwell School of Public Affairs, Syracuse University. Savage’s publications, teaching, and presentations generally involve comparative analyses of transitional societies, with a particular interest in negotiations and strategies for transforming conflict.