The twin peacebuilding processes are equally necessary – and might run concurrently via coordination and sequencing.
As Ethiopia navigates its complicated and fragile political transition, indications are that the transitional justice course of is experiencing delays. A public session on draft transitional justice legal guidelines, initially scheduled for earlier this yr, has not occurred.
Unofficial however extensively circulated claims within the public area recommend that transitional justice is informally on maintain till the Nationwide Dialogue Fee concludes its mandate.
From the outset, stress has surrounded the coexistence of those two processes, with stakeholders expressing concern that one might steal the highlight or undermine the urgency and relevance of the opposite.
Transitional justice actors feared the nationwide dialogue would monopolise institutional and political consideration. Proponents of nationwide dialogue considered transitional justice, with its fast course of and victim-centred agenda, as doubtlessly polarising and ill-timed. They contended that transitional justice must be delayed – approached as a substitute as a downstream final result of the dialogue course of.
Nevertheless, the connection between the 2 processes hasn’t been adequately clarified or publicly debated. Moreover, nameless sources say authorities’s failure to determine the Transitional Justice Institutional Coordination Mechanism might have contributed to tensions and the shortage of a system to handle institutional and course of politics.
Whereas transitional justice focuses on acknowledging hurt, offering redress for victims and reforming establishments, nationwide dialogue goals to forge inclusive agreements on basic nationwide points like governance, id and peaceable coexistence.
Globally, numerous peacebuilding fashions involving each processes exist in post-conflict settings. Transitional justice may end up from dialogue, happen earlier than it, or alongside it. In Ethiopia, transitional justice is an impartial course of supported by authorized and political mandates. It’s not simply an aspirational ultimate – however a longtime coverage dedication.
The impetus for pursuing transitional justice did not come up from the nationwide dialogue; it was motivated by public calls for, empirical proof, worldwide authorized obligations and authorities’s political guarantees. These had been detailed within the Inexperienced Paper ready by the Transitional Justice Working Group of Consultants, constituted by the Justice Ministry following the 2022 Cessation of Hostilities Settlement (CoHA) between the Federal Authorities and the Tigray Individuals’s Liberation Entrance.
Momentum for addressing previous abuses via transitional justice emerged even earlier than the Tigray battle. Nevertheless, these pre-war efforts had been fragmented and poorly coordinated.
In response to the violations dedicated in the course of the struggle, a joint investigation of the Ethiopian Human Rights Fee and Workplace of the United Nations Excessive Commissioner for Human Rights advisable transitional justice as important in 2021. The CoHA requires authorities to determine a complete, nationwide and victim-centred mechanism that aligns with worldwide human rights requirements and the African Union Transitional Justice Coverage.
According to the coverage adopted by the Council of Ministers in 2024, draft legal guidelines have been ready establishing the Particular Bench, Particular Prosecution Workplace, Fact and Social Cohesion Fee, and Vetting Fee.
Parts of truth-seeking and social cohesion in transitional justice might intersect with the nationwide dialogue’s efforts to determine the foundation causes of violence and instability. Each might look at structural elements of violence, reconstruct narratives and make clear historical past.
Sources recommend that this overlap contributes to stress between nationwide dialogue and transitional justice. With no framework to coordinate these overlapping mandates, there’s a threat of duplication, confusion and public participation fatigue.
The difficulty requires a participatory and clear dialogue to make clear how truth-telling, historic inquiry and reconciliation below each processes might be synchronised. What is required is strategic alignment – not establishing a superficial institutional hierarchy.
One solution to resolve the confusion is to briefly pause each processes. This might enable for potential intersections to be examined and addressed via coordination or mandate revisions. That may assist guarantee complementarity and allow transitional justice and nationwide dialogue to progress concurrently, reinforcing relatively than undermining each other.
A brief pause may be justified by the present battle state of affairs. As an example, if a peace course of is initiated to finish hostilities in Amhara or Oromia, a brief deferral of justice initiatives could also be pragmatic.
The similar holds for nationwide dialogue. Insecurity, displacement and mistrust have obstructed public engagement in sure areas, leading to main opposition political events withdrawing. Provided that the Nationwide Dialogue Fee is struggling to finalise the primary of its 5 main actions, it’s unlikely to conclude its work inside the the rest of the just lately prolonged deadline of February 2026.
Delaying transitional justice in favour of nationwide dialogue incorrectly means that transitional justice is secondary to nationwide dialogue and that the pursuit of justice should anticipate political consensus. That is unsuitable for not less than 4 causes.
First, suspending transitional justice dangers reinforcing perceptions – each domestically and internationally – that the federal government was by no means absolutely dedicated to the initiative, and is retreating as the method good points momentum. That might undermine public belief and worldwide credibility, making it tough to rebuild momentum or mobilise the political, institutional and monetary sources essential to pursue the method credibly.
Second, the necessity for transitional justice is expressed within the CoHA, public consultations and nationwide surveyswhich predate and stand independently from future suggestions of the nationwide dialogue course of. Delays would quantity to holding justice hostage to processes which are neither substitutes for nor stipulations to redress – doubtlessly deepening victims’ notion of extended neglect and impunity.
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Third, suspending transitional justice is untimely. The anticipated overlap with the nationwide dialogue and the proposed truth-seeking and social cohesion fee has not materialised because the transitional justice course of continues to be in its preparatory part.
Fourth, Ethiopia does not face an both/or dilemma. The transitional justice course of doesn’t overburden institutional capability or divert public consideration. It may proceed whereas the 2 processes are aligned.
Even when, following an evaluation of overlaps and tensions, a call is taken to delay implementation of sure transitional justice elements, such a call should be selective relatively than blanket. A cautious sequencing technique ought to pinpoint which pillars is likely to be briefly paused or adjusted to boost complementarity between the 2 processes.
Equally important is that any such determination be communicated via an official and clear course of to safeguard each initiatives from damaging hypothesis and erosion of public belief.
Finally, any strategy to resolving tensions should protect the integrity and aims of each processes. Transitional justice doesn’t impede nationwide dialogue, and nationwide dialogue mustn’t impede justice.
Tadesse Simie MetekiaSenior Researcher, Particular Initiatives, ISS Addis Ababa
