Book Review – Transitional Justice and Development : Making Connections

This article reviews an edited collection of essays resulting from a two-year research project carried out by the International Center for Transitional Justice (ICTJ) the primary objective of which was to bring “into dialogue those who often work alongside each other in transitional and developing societies, but not always together in providing a coherent response to the interconnected concerns of development and justice.” It is divided into four parts with an introduction as the first. In the second part a synopsis of the collection is presented while the third part is an analysis of the contributions with some attention to how the individual contributions fit into the entire collection. I make a brief conclusion in the fourth and last part. Following my analysis, I argue that for any meaningful connection to be made between transitional justice and development, the overall context for transition has to be understood. At the same time the collection has opened the door for further research in this field especially in those areas where there might be tension between transitional justice and development