Abstract:
Transitions provide an opportunity for countries to renew or replace the functionality of the
system that has been affected by conflicts of human rights violations by an authoritarian
government; it serves as a foundation for a new societal identity that departs from the past. One
of such mechanisms to effect renewal or replacement of the system is responding to the human
rights abuses that have happened in the past. Such a response to violations of human rights can
be implemented through different initiatives such as prosecution, amnesty, reconciliation or
reparations that are generally considered as pillars to transitional justice mechanisms.
While responding to past human right abuses, there are many interests that have to be taken with
care and principled application of the rules under international law such as victims’ right to
remedy or reparation, societal right to the truth, states duty to prosecute core human rights
violations and societal interest to achieve peace and stability. International law dictates that
states should prosecute core violations of human rights such as genocide and torture, and
employ other restorative transitional justice mechanisms to respond to other human rights
violations of the past by taking the specific context of the country and other practical situations
into consideration by employing an inclusive process that can lead to an attainment of peace and
democracy. It’s clear that Ethiopia has been in implementing varies transitional justice
mechanisms to respond to past human rights violations, and the lack of transitional road map
coupled with unclarity in the choices and priorities of those mechanisms and also the obvious
mischief of some actions already taken brings the legitimacy of the process under international
law into question. This paper analyses the compatibility of the actions taken by the Ethiopian
government, most specifically, prosecution, amnesty and reconciliation as a response to past
human rights abuses in light of international law. And it points out some problems in the process
such as lack of proper investigation, lack of inclusion of victims and the society at large on the
transitional justice road map, incomprehensive application of different transitional justice
mechanisms, establishment of a defective truth and reconciliation commission and other related
problems. The research also provides a way forward that can be used to fix some of the problems
and help the progress of ongoing transitional justice initiatives.
