Transitional Justice

Description

This is a truly interesting and insightful analysis of one of the fundamental issues for political science of our times -- how the emerging democracies in Eastern Europe and elsewhere should deal with the legal systems inherited from their authoritarian pasts. As Teitel cogently observes, implicated in this large issue are a variety of extremely interesting and difficult questions. Should the past system be repudiated altogether? Should the leaders from the authoritarian period be punished? If so, how? Under what principles of law would punishment be justified, given that the leaders were, in general, acting legally according to the legal systems in effect at the time? This book is the first systematic treatment of these issues. In fact, Teitel may be the first scholar to identify the major problem and to place it in a systematic intellectual context. She brings an exceptional breadth of knowledge to bear on the problem, ranging across history and, in contemporary culture, across the globe Latin America, Africa, and Europe). A superb accomplishment, and must reading for anyone interested in the role of law in contemporary world politics.