Inclusive, comprehensive, and credible transitional justice process to realize sustainable peace and reconciliation in Ethiopia

The effective implementation of Ethiopia’s transitional justice policy aims to bring about lasting peace and reconciliation. If successful, it has the potential to strengthen human rights protections and the rule of law.

To discuss Ethiopia’s ongoing transitional justice process, the U.S. Embassy in Ethiopia brought U.S. transitional justice expert Professor Matiangai Sirleaf from the University of Maryland’s School of Law to Ethiopia April 21 to 27.

During her weeklong visit, Professor Sirleaf conducted lectures, workshops, and discussions in Addis Ababa and Mekelle with a range of civil society, academic, and other stakeholders on the promise and pitfalls of transitional justice processes and the potential role they can play in building sustainable peace and reconciliation as well as the challenges they face facilitating these objectives. Professor Sirleaf said of the visit, “Transitional justice as a field seeks to reckon with legacies of widespread or systematic human rights abuses. My interest in transitional justice is informed by experiences during the Liberian civil war. My work in the field is motivated not only as an academic, or as a practitioner, but as someone with lived experience. In my scholarship on African transitional justice processes, I have argued for the need to formulate effective and contextually appropriate responses to mass violence. The consultation in Ethiopia underscored that a 'onesize-fits-all,' approach will not work."