Transitional (in)Justice as Duration
Abstract
This study demonstrates that the ‘transition’ in transitional jurisprudence is a collective imagination that plausibly lays upon the interaction between competing temporal narratives in ‘historical cases’—broadly understood as cases that involve the interplay between law’s temporality and historical process. The dominant view of transitional jurisprudence is inclined to consider transition as a series of discrete and fragmented events. This view, however, fails to bridge the gap between lived experience and law and policy’s mode of representation of past injustices. By contrast, this paper contends that transition should be perceived in pure temporality—transition as a flux or flow of time. This view enables legal actors to better engage in the multitude of temporalities in historical cases. This paper analyzes two issues. First, it juxtaposes the ontological perspective of time as duration and theory of adjudicative reasoning to construe ‘transition’ as a collective temporal imagination among legal actors. It manifests a theoretical basis for experiential time in law by extrapolating Postema’s legal time-mindfulness and Bergson’s duration. Second, it examines law’s distinctive virtue in micro-level agreement about the (temporal) sense of injustices. By focusing on the statutory limitation discussion in African-American Slave Descendants Litigation case in the United States, this study finds that law’s temporality is primarily contested due to the givenness of time. This article concludes that legal actors perceivably capture and disrupt persistent injustices at a micro-level by dislocating the present of atrocious lived experience.
References
Aboueldahab, Noha, “The Politics of Time, Transition, and Justice in Transitional Justice” (2021) Int Crim Law Rev 1–8.
Alexander, Larry & Emily Sherwin, “Demystifying legal reasoning” (2008).
Anensom, T Leigh, “From Theory to Practice: Analyzing Equitable Estoppel Under a Pluralistic Model of Law” (2007) 11 Lewis Clark Rev 633.
Arthur, Paige, “How ‘transitions’ reshaped human rights: A conceptual history of transitional justice” (2009) 31:2 Hum Rights Q 321–367.
Atria, Fernando, On law and legal reasoning (Oxford, Portland: Bloomsbury Publishing, 2002).
Benda-Beckmann, Franz von & Keebet von Benda-Beckmann, “Places that come and go: A legal anthropological perspective on the temporalities of space in plural legal orders” in Irus Braverman et al, eds, Expand Spaces Law Timely Leg Geogr (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2014) 30.
Bergson, Henri, “Creative Evolution” in Henri Bergson Key Writ (Bloomsbury, 2002).
Bergson, Henri, Time and free will: An essay on the immediate data of consciousness (Routledge, 2014).
Buana, Mirza Satria, “A Realistic Perspective to Transitional Justice: A Study of Its Impediments in Indonesia” (2020) 4 JSEAHR 406.
Burton, Orville Vernon & Armand Derfner, “Justice Deferred” in Justice Deferred (Harvard University Press, 2021).
Castillejo-Cuéllar, Alejandro, “Historical Injuries, Temporality and the Law: Articulations of a Violent Past in Two Transitional Scenarios” (2014) 25 Law Crit 47–66.
Chowdhury, Tanzil, “Temporality and Criminal Law Adjudication’s Multiple Pasts” (2017) 38:2 Liverp Law Rev 187–206.
———, “Time frames and legal indeterminacy” (2017) 30:1 Can J Law Jurisprud 57–76.
Chowdhury, Tanzil, Time, Temporality and Legal Judgment (Oxon, New York: Routledge, 2020).
Citrawan, Harison, “A Deleuzian Reading on Hart’s Internal Point of View” (2022) 9:1 Padjadjaran J Ilmu Huk J Law 135–151.
Collins, Cath, Post-Transitional Justice: Human Rights Trials in Chile and El Salvador (Pennsylvania: The Pennsylvania State University Press, 2010).
Deleuze, Giles, “Bergsonism (H. Tomlinson & B. Habberjam, Trans.)” (1991) N Y Zone.
Donelson, Raff, “Reparations, Responsibility, and Formalism: A Reply to Carnes” (2021) 49:2 Philosophia 643–649.
Dworkin, Ronald, Law’s Empire (Cambridge, Massachusetts, London: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1986).
Finkel, Steven E, Aníbal Pérez-Liñán & Mitchell A Seligson, “The effects of US foreign assistance on democracy building, 1990–2003” (2007) 59:3 World Polit 404–439.
Fletcher, Laurel E & Harvey M Weinstein, “Context, Timing and the Dynamics of Transitional Justice: A Historical Perspective” (2009) 163:31 Hum Rights Q 165–220.
Garapon, Antoine, “Judging the past: three ways of understanding time” in Luigi Corrias & Lyana Francot, eds, Temporal Boundaries Law Polit Time Jt (Oxon & New York: Routledge, 2018) 15.
Grabham, Emily, Brewing legal times: Things, form, and the enactment of law (Toronto, Buffalo, London: University of Toronto Press, 2018).
Greenhouse, Carol J, “Just in time: Temporality and the cultural legitimation of law” (1988) 98 Yale LJ 1631.
Grosz, Elizabeth, The nick of time: Politics, evolution, and the untimely (Durham & London: Duke University Press, 2004).
Harrington, John, “Time as a dimension of medical law” (2012) 20:Autumn Med Law Rev 491–515.
Hart, HLA, The Concept of Law, 3rd ed (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012).
Holmes, Oliver Wendell, “The common law” in Common Law (Harvard University Press, 2009).
Houtum, Henk Van, “Waiting before the law: Kafka on the border” (2010) 19:3 Soc Leg Stud 285–297.
In re African-American Slave Descendants Lit BT - F 3d, 2006 754.
In Re African-American Slave Descendants Lit BT - F Supp 2d, 2004 1027.
In re African-American Slave Descendants Litig BT - F Supp 2d, 2005 721.
Ismael, Jenann, “Temporal experience” in Oxf Handb Philos Time (Oxford University Press, 2011).
Joshi, Yuvraj, “Affirmative Action as Transitional Justice” (2020) Wis Rev 1.
———, “Racial Transition” (2020) 98 Wash UL Rev 1181.
Kafka, Franz, “Devant la loi” (2005) 15 Portique Rev Philos Sci Hum.
Karstedt, Susanne, “Between micro and macro justice: Emotions in transitional justice” in Susan A Bandes et al, eds, Res Handb Law Emot (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2021) 460.
Kennedy, Duncan, Legal reasoning: Collected essays (Davies Group Publishers, 2008).
Landes, Donald, “From a privileged image of durée to the core of a new metaphysics” in Mark Sinclair & Yaron Wolf, eds, Bergsonian Mind (Oxon & New York: Routledge, 2021) 99.
Latour, Bruno, We have never been modern (trans. by Catherine Porter) (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1993).
Lawther, Cheryl, “‘Let Me Tell You’: Transitional Justice, Victimhood and Dealing with a Contested Past” (2021) 30:6 Soc Leg Stud 890–912.
Lefebvre, Alexandre, “A new image of law: Deleuze and jurisprudence” (2005) 130 telos 103–126.
Lefebvre, Alexandre, The Image of Law: Deleuze, Bergson, Spinoza (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2008).
Lillie, Christine & Ronnie Janoff-Bulman, “Macro versus micro justice and perceived fairness of truth and reconciliation commissions” (2007) 13:2 Peace Confl J Peace Psychol 221–236.
Linstead, Stephen & John Mullarkey, “Time, creativity and culture: Introducing Bergson” (2003) 9:1 Cult Organ 3–13.
Lyons, David, “Unfinished Business: Racial Junctures in US History and Their Legacy” in Lukas H Meyer, ed, Justice Time Responding Hist Injustice (Baden-Baden: Nomos Verlagsgesellschaft, 2004) 271.
MacCormick, Neil, Legal reasoning and legal theory (New York: Oxford University Press, 1978).
MacLean, James, “Rhizomatics, the becoming of law, and legal institutions” (2012) Deleuze Law 151.
MacLean, James, Rethinking law as process: Creativity, novelty, change (Oxon, New York: Routledge, 2012).
Maddison, Sarah & Laura J Shepherd, “Peacebuilding and the postcolonial politics of transitional justice” (2014) 2:3 Peacebuilding 253–269.
Mar, Maksymilian Del, Artefacts of legal inquiry: the value of imagination in adjudication (Bloomsbury Publishing, 2020).
Mawani, Renisa, “Law As Temporality: Colonial Politics and Indian Settlers” (2014) 4:1 UC Irvine Law Rev 65–95.
———, “The times of law” (2015) 40:1 Law Soc Inq 253–263.
McAuliffe, Pádraig, “Transitional Justice, Institutions and Temporality: Towards a Dynamic Understanding” (2021) 21:5 Int Crim Law Rev 817–847.
McGregor, Katharine E & Ken Setiawan, “Shifting from International to ‘Indonesian’ Justice Measures: Two Decades of Addressing Past Human Rights Violations” (2019) 49:5 J Contemp Asia 837–861.
McNeilly, Kathryn, “Are Rights Out of Time? International Human Rights Law, Temporality, and Radical Social Change” (2019) 28:6 Soc Leg Stud 817–838.
Melissaris, Emmanuel, “The Chronology of the Legal” (2005) 50 McGill Law J 839–862.
Miller, Zinaida, “Temporal Governance: The Times of Transitional Justice” (2021) 21:5 Int Crim Law Rev 848–877.
———, “The injustices of time: Rights, race, redistribution, and responsibility” (2020) 52 Columbia Hum Rights Law Rev 647–737.
Mueller-Hirth, Natascha & Sandra Rios Oyola, “Defusing time bombs: Towards an understanding of time and temporality in peacebuilding” in Natascha Mueller-Hirth & Sandra Rios Oyola, eds, Time Temporality Transitional Post-Confl Soc (Oxon, New York: Routledge, 2018) 180.
Murphy, Colleen, The conceptual foundations of transitional justice (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2017).
Obergefell v Hodges BT - S Ct, 2015 2071.
Page, Jennifer M & Desmond King, “Truth and Reparation for the US Imprisonment and Policing Regime: A Transitional Justice Perspective” (2021) Bois Rev Soc Sci Res Race 1–23.
Pavlakos, George, “Practice, reasons, and the agent’s point of view” (2009) 22:1 Ratio Juris 74–94.
Perry, Stephen, “Hart on social rules and the foundations of law: liberating the internal point of view” (2006) 75:1 Fordham Rev 1171.
Polizzi, Marc & Jeffrey King, “Aid for justice? Analyzing the impact of foreign aid on recipient transitional justice implementation” (2021) Int J Hum Rights 1–23.
Postema, Gerald J, “Melody and Law’s Mindfulness of Time” (2004) 17:2 Ratio Juris 203–226.
———, “Time in Law’s Domain” (2018) 31:2 Ratio Juris 160–182.
Ring, Sinéad, “On delay and duration: Law’s temporal orders in historical child sexual abuse cases” in Siân M Beynon-Jones & Emily Grabham, eds, Law Time (London: Routledge, 2018) 93.
Sarat, Austin & Thomas R Kearns, “Writing History and Registering Memory in Legal Decisions and Legal Practices: An Introduction” in Austin Sarat & Thomas R Kearns, eds, Hist Mem Law (The University of Michigan Press, 2005) 1.
Savelsberg, Joachim J & Ryan D King, “Law and Collective Memory” (2007) 3:1 Annu Rev Law Soc Sci 189–211.
Siegel, Reva, “The Nineteenth Amendment and the Politics of Constitutional Memory” (2022) Georget J Law Public Policy Forthcom.
Super, David A, “Temporal Equal Protection” (2019) 98:1 N C Law Rev 59–122.
Teitel, Ruti G, “Transitional justice genealogy” (2003) 16 Harv Hum Rts J 69.
Teitel, Ruti, “Transitional jurisprudence: the role of law in political transformation” (1996) 106 Yale LJ 2009.
Thompson, Janna, Should current generations make reparation for slavery? (John Wiley & Sons, 2018).
———, Taking responsibility for the past: Reparation and historical injustice (JSTOR, 2002).
Valverde, Mariana, Chronotopes of law: Jurisdiction, scale and governance (Oxon, New York: Routledge, 2015).
Veitch, Scott, Emilios Christodoulidis & Marco Goldoni, Jurisprudence: Themes and concepts (Routledge, 2013).
Winter, Stephen, Transitional Justice in Established Democracies: A Political Theory (Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014).
Wu, Jingjing, “Justifying Particular Reasoning in a Legal Context” (2020) 40:3 Informal Log.
Alexander, Larry & Emily Sherwin, “Demystifying legal reasoning” (2008).
Anensom, T Leigh, “From Theory to Practice: Analyzing Equitable Estoppel Under a Pluralistic Model of Law” (2007) 11 Lewis Clark Rev 633.
Arthur, Paige, “How ‘transitions’ reshaped human rights: A conceptual history of transitional justice” (2009) 31:2 Hum Rights Q 321–367.
Atria, Fernando, On law and legal reasoning (Oxford, Portland: Bloomsbury Publishing, 2002).
Benda-Beckmann, Franz von & Keebet von Benda-Beckmann, “Places that come and go: A legal anthropological perspective on the temporalities of space in plural legal orders” in Irus Braverman et al, eds, Expand Spaces Law Timely Leg Geogr (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2014) 30.
Bergson, Henri, “Creative Evolution” in Henri Bergson Key Writ (Bloomsbury, 2002).
Bergson, Henri, Time and free will: An essay on the immediate data of consciousness (Routledge, 2014).
Buana, Mirza Satria, “A Realistic Perspective to Transitional Justice: A Study of Its Impediments in Indonesia” (2020) 4 JSEAHR 406.
Burton, Orville Vernon & Armand Derfner, “Justice Deferred” in Justice Deferred (Harvard University Press, 2021).
Castillejo-Cuéllar, Alejandro, “Historical Injuries, Temporality and the Law: Articulations of a Violent Past in Two Transitional Scenarios” (2014) 25 Law Crit 47–66.
Chowdhury, Tanzil, “Temporality and Criminal Law Adjudication’s Multiple Pasts” (2017) 38:2 Liverp Law Rev 187–206.
———, “Time frames and legal indeterminacy” (2017) 30:1 Can J Law Jurisprud 57–76.
Chowdhury, Tanzil, Time, Temporality and Legal Judgment (Oxon, New York: Routledge, 2020).
Citrawan, Harison, “A Deleuzian Reading on Hart’s Internal Point of View” (2022) 9:1 Padjadjaran J Ilmu Huk J Law 135–151.
Collins, Cath, Post-Transitional Justice: Human Rights Trials in Chile and El Salvador (Pennsylvania: The Pennsylvania State University Press, 2010).
Deleuze, Giles, “Bergsonism (H. Tomlinson & B. Habberjam, Trans.)” (1991) N Y Zone.
Donelson, Raff, “Reparations, Responsibility, and Formalism: A Reply to Carnes” (2021) 49:2 Philosophia 643–649.
Dworkin, Ronald, Law’s Empire (Cambridge, Massachusetts, London: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1986).
Finkel, Steven E, Aníbal Pérez-Liñán & Mitchell A Seligson, “The effects of US foreign assistance on democracy building, 1990–2003” (2007) 59:3 World Polit 404–439.
Fletcher, Laurel E & Harvey M Weinstein, “Context, Timing and the Dynamics of Transitional Justice: A Historical Perspective” (2009) 163:31 Hum Rights Q 165–220.
Garapon, Antoine, “Judging the past: three ways of understanding time” in Luigi Corrias & Lyana Francot, eds, Temporal Boundaries Law Polit Time Jt (Oxon & New York: Routledge, 2018) 15.
Grabham, Emily, Brewing legal times: Things, form, and the enactment of law (Toronto, Buffalo, London: University of Toronto Press, 2018).
Greenhouse, Carol J, “Just in time: Temporality and the cultural legitimation of law” (1988) 98 Yale LJ 1631.
Grosz, Elizabeth, The nick of time: Politics, evolution, and the untimely (Durham & London: Duke University Press, 2004).
Harrington, John, “Time as a dimension of medical law” (2012) 20:Autumn Med Law Rev 491–515.
Hart, HLA, The Concept of Law, 3rd ed (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012).
Holmes, Oliver Wendell, “The common law” in Common Law (Harvard University Press, 2009).
Houtum, Henk Van, “Waiting before the law: Kafka on the border” (2010) 19:3 Soc Leg Stud 285–297.
In re African-American Slave Descendants Lit BT - F 3d, 2006 754.
In Re African-American Slave Descendants Lit BT - F Supp 2d, 2004 1027.
In re African-American Slave Descendants Litig BT - F Supp 2d, 2005 721.
Ismael, Jenann, “Temporal experience” in Oxf Handb Philos Time (Oxford University Press, 2011).
Joshi, Yuvraj, “Affirmative Action as Transitional Justice” (2020) Wis Rev 1.
———, “Racial Transition” (2020) 98 Wash UL Rev 1181.
Kafka, Franz, “Devant la loi” (2005) 15 Portique Rev Philos Sci Hum.
Karstedt, Susanne, “Between micro and macro justice: Emotions in transitional justice” in Susan A Bandes et al, eds, Res Handb Law Emot (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2021) 460.
Kennedy, Duncan, Legal reasoning: Collected essays (Davies Group Publishers, 2008).
Landes, Donald, “From a privileged image of durée to the core of a new metaphysics” in Mark Sinclair & Yaron Wolf, eds, Bergsonian Mind (Oxon & New York: Routledge, 2021) 99.
Latour, Bruno, We have never been modern (trans. by Catherine Porter) (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1993).
Lawther, Cheryl, “‘Let Me Tell You’: Transitional Justice, Victimhood and Dealing with a Contested Past” (2021) 30:6 Soc Leg Stud 890–912.
Lefebvre, Alexandre, “A new image of law: Deleuze and jurisprudence” (2005) 130 telos 103–126.
Lefebvre, Alexandre, The Image of Law: Deleuze, Bergson, Spinoza (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2008).
Lillie, Christine & Ronnie Janoff-Bulman, “Macro versus micro justice and perceived fairness of truth and reconciliation commissions” (2007) 13:2 Peace Confl J Peace Psychol 221–236.
Linstead, Stephen & John Mullarkey, “Time, creativity and culture: Introducing Bergson” (2003) 9:1 Cult Organ 3–13.
Lyons, David, “Unfinished Business: Racial Junctures in US History and Their Legacy” in Lukas H Meyer, ed, Justice Time Responding Hist Injustice (Baden-Baden: Nomos Verlagsgesellschaft, 2004) 271.
MacCormick, Neil, Legal reasoning and legal theory (New York: Oxford University Press, 1978).
MacLean, James, “Rhizomatics, the becoming of law, and legal institutions” (2012) Deleuze Law 151.
MacLean, James, Rethinking law as process: Creativity, novelty, change (Oxon, New York: Routledge, 2012).
Maddison, Sarah & Laura J Shepherd, “Peacebuilding and the postcolonial politics of transitional justice” (2014) 2:3 Peacebuilding 253–269.
Mar, Maksymilian Del, Artefacts of legal inquiry: the value of imagination in adjudication (Bloomsbury Publishing, 2020).
Mawani, Renisa, “Law As Temporality: Colonial Politics and Indian Settlers” (2014) 4:1 UC Irvine Law Rev 65–95.
———, “The times of law” (2015) 40:1 Law Soc Inq 253–263.
McAuliffe, Pádraig, “Transitional Justice, Institutions and Temporality: Towards a Dynamic Understanding” (2021) 21:5 Int Crim Law Rev 817–847.
McGregor, Katharine E & Ken Setiawan, “Shifting from International to ‘Indonesian’ Justice Measures: Two Decades of Addressing Past Human Rights Violations” (2019) 49:5 J Contemp Asia 837–861.
McNeilly, Kathryn, “Are Rights Out of Time? International Human Rights Law, Temporality, and Radical Social Change” (2019) 28:6 Soc Leg Stud 817–838.
Melissaris, Emmanuel, “The Chronology of the Legal” (2005) 50 McGill Law J 839–862.
Miller, Zinaida, “Temporal Governance: The Times of Transitional Justice” (2021) 21:5 Int Crim Law Rev 848–877.
———, “The injustices of time: Rights, race, redistribution, and responsibility” (2020) 52 Columbia Hum Rights Law Rev 647–737.
Mueller-Hirth, Natascha & Sandra Rios Oyola, “Defusing time bombs: Towards an understanding of time and temporality in peacebuilding” in Natascha Mueller-Hirth & Sandra Rios Oyola, eds, Time Temporality Transitional Post-Confl Soc (Oxon, New York: Routledge, 2018) 180.
Murphy, Colleen, The conceptual foundations of transitional justice (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2017).
Obergefell v Hodges BT - S Ct, 2015 2071.
Page, Jennifer M & Desmond King, “Truth and Reparation for the US Imprisonment and Policing Regime: A Transitional Justice Perspective” (2021) Bois Rev Soc Sci Res Race 1–23.
Pavlakos, George, “Practice, reasons, and the agent’s point of view” (2009) 22:1 Ratio Juris 74–94.
Perry, Stephen, “Hart on social rules and the foundations of law: liberating the internal point of view” (2006) 75:1 Fordham Rev 1171.
Polizzi, Marc & Jeffrey King, “Aid for justice? Analyzing the impact of foreign aid on recipient transitional justice implementation” (2021) Int J Hum Rights 1–23.
Postema, Gerald J, “Melody and Law’s Mindfulness of Time” (2004) 17:2 Ratio Juris 203–226.
———, “Time in Law’s Domain” (2018) 31:2 Ratio Juris 160–182.
Ring, Sinéad, “On delay and duration: Law’s temporal orders in historical child sexual abuse cases” in Siân M Beynon-Jones & Emily Grabham, eds, Law Time (London: Routledge, 2018) 93.
Sarat, Austin & Thomas R Kearns, “Writing History and Registering Memory in Legal Decisions and Legal Practices: An Introduction” in Austin Sarat & Thomas R Kearns, eds, Hist Mem Law (The University of Michigan Press, 2005) 1.
Savelsberg, Joachim J & Ryan D King, “Law and Collective Memory” (2007) 3:1 Annu Rev Law Soc Sci 189–211.
Siegel, Reva, “The Nineteenth Amendment and the Politics of Constitutional Memory” (2022) Georget J Law Public Policy Forthcom.
Super, David A, “Temporal Equal Protection” (2019) 98:1 N C Law Rev 59–122.
Teitel, Ruti G, “Transitional justice genealogy” (2003) 16 Harv Hum Rts J 69.
Teitel, Ruti, “Transitional jurisprudence: the role of law in political transformation” (1996) 106 Yale LJ 2009.
Thompson, Janna, Should current generations make reparation for slavery? (John Wiley & Sons, 2018).
———, Taking responsibility for the past: Reparation and historical injustice (JSTOR, 2002).
Valverde, Mariana, Chronotopes of law: Jurisdiction, scale and governance (Oxon, New York: Routledge, 2015).
Veitch, Scott, Emilios Christodoulidis & Marco Goldoni, Jurisprudence: Themes and concepts (Routledge, 2013).
Winter, Stephen, Transitional Justice in Established Democracies: A Political Theory (Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014).
Wu, Jingjing, “Justifying Particular Reasoning in a Legal Context” (2020) 40:3 Informal Log.
Published
2022-06-30
How to Cite
CITRAWAN, Harison.
Transitional (in)Justice as Duration.
Journal of Southeast Asian Human Rights, [S.l.], v. 6, n. 1, p. 101-130, june 2022.
ISSN 2599-2147.
Available at: <https://jurnal.unej.ac.id/index.php/JSEAHR/article/view/31523>. Date accessed: 18 apr. 2024.
doi: https://doi.org/10.19184/jseahr.v6i1.31523.
Section
Articles
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.
