Transitional Justice and National Reconciliation and Their Ability to Be an Alternative to Traditional Criminal Justice in Libya

Abstract

Proponents of transitional justice assert that this justice is exercised in exceptional periods of people's history, particularly when traditional criminal justice is unable to achieve its objectives. Transitional justice can fill this deficit occurring in the national justice system, especially if the crimes committed were of a very general, systematic and serious nature. This would raise a specific question about the capacity of this transitional justice to be an alternative to traditional criminal justice in order to eliminate the violations that occurred in Libya for more than half a century. This question, in turn, leads us to another question that we consider more important, linked to the extent of possibilities, the success of transitional justice tools to achieve reconciliation in a country like Libya in light of the events that have occurred and are occurring. This study attempts to answer the two aforementioned questions.