The International Journal of Transitional Justice aims to provide just such a forum for developing and sharing knowledge and for building and consolidating research expertise in this vital field of study. Most importantly, IJTJ serves as both a vehicle for this information and as a point of dialogue between activists, practitioners and academics. …In the past two decades, countries emerging from divided histories have increasingly incorporated transitional justice mechanisms in order to uncover and deal with crimes of the past. Transitional justice has fast emerged as a recognised field of policy expertise, research and law, and today, is considered to be an academic discipline in its own right. Futhermore, concerns with transitional justice and its relevance to building durable peace has acquired an urgency and a priority within the world’s most important multilateral agencies. United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan, in addresses to both the Security Council and the General Assembly, has noted that it is only through ‘reintroducing the rule of law and confidence in its impartial application that we can hope to resuscitate societies shattered by conflict’. Citing transitional justice processes as a key vehicle in achieving this objective, Annan announced that the United Nations is working on ‘important new tools’ to strengthen the transitional justice processes of post-conflict states.
