Responding To Past Human Rights Abuses Through Amnesty, Reconciliation And Prosecution: Analyzing The Case Of

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.