Short Course: Transitional Justice: Law and Practice

Course Details

This course will approach the traditional "pillars" of transitional justice - prosecutions, truth-telling, reparations and guarantees of non-repetition - in a holistic and context-nuanced manner. The course will investigate the timing, guiding principles and instruments that are relevant for all mentioned transitional justice dimensions and make them a harmonised whole, for a particular context, in a particular time.

Throughout five sessions, participants will expand their understanding of a "transition" and instances, when certain transitional justice steps can and should be implemented while an armed conflict or atrocity situation is still ongoing. The course will discuss survivor involvement in the design and implementation of transitional justice measures, especially reparations. The sessions will analyse how some structural steps such as vetting of the judiciary and investigations of corporate implication in human rights violations are key for nuanced reckoning and redress. Participants will also explore how traditional justice initiatives could make responses to atrocities more sustainable and embraced by affected societies. All sessions will emphasise the indispensability of the underlying gender-competence and the guiding ethos of prevention for all transitional justice measures.

By the end of the course, participants will:

• Understand the spectrum of contexts, in which transitional justice initiatives can be launched;
• Realise the roles of various actors involved in designing and implementing transitional justice measures;
• Distinguish various types of reparations for atrocity survivors and the role of urgent interim reparations for them;
• Understand corporate culpability in human rights violations and the way it can be addressed in transitional contexts;
• Gain awareness of different cultural contexts and how they can support sustainable in- and post-conflict transformations;
• Realise the crucial role of women and minority groups in advancing transitional justice, including for the core purpose of preventing potential atrocity situations.

Course topics:

• Transitional justice: framework, timing and varied accountability lenses
• "Nothing for us without us": victims' and survivors' agency, rights and role in transitional justice.
• Gender-competence as an underlying principle of transitional justice measures and a key to prevention.
• Cultural heritage and indigenous justice mechanisms in transitional justice.
• Key arbiters and perpetrators: the reform of the judiciary and responses to corporate human rights abuses in transitional contexts.

Course leader

Dr Kateryna Busol, British Academy Research Fellow, BIICL and Associate Professor at the National University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy.

Course format

The virtual course format will consist of a series of 5 sessions in which live (synchronous) teaching is offered via Zoom. Participants will be able to interact with the tutors and amongst themselves on screen.

Training scholarships

We are delighted to be able to offer scholarships designed to enable individuals from communities currently under-represented in the legal field to access our world-class courses and benefit from unparalleled learning experiences.

Scholarships are aimed at 3 categories: individuals from communities and backgrounds that are under-represented in the legal field in the UK and abroad; individuals who have recently received a needs-based bursary from their university or further-education college and representatives from Small Charities, NGOs, and Community-Based Organisations.

Applications for training scholarships must be received at least three weeks ahead of the course start date (23 March 2026). Applications must be made via the online form and applications received via any other means will not be considered.

Find out more and apply for a scholarship

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