Book Project
measures of justice: Building community in conflict
The law relies on a fiction that its authority is apolitical, immune to the tensions, contradictions and pressures of the social world. But legal institutions, like all organizations, are social creatures. How do they resolve this tension? In this book, I draw on three seemingly distant types of legal institutions—the International Criminal Court in The Hague, Colombia’s national transitional justice court and community courts in Brooklyn, NY—to answer this question. All three of these courts operate under tenuous circumstances. While traditional criminal courts benefit from the full force of the state, these institutions exist at the border of their respective fields, juggling principles of punitive, restorative, transitional and transformative justice. How do they construct and manage these different visions of justice? And what are the consequences for the communities whose harm they seek to adjudicate? Drawing on interviews, institutional analysis and participant observation, this book unpacks the social conditions of power upon which the law is built in conflict-affected contexts. In particular, I argue, legal institutions working in these contexts must actively work to construct their relationship with victims and affected communities. The book explores how this happens in practice, drawing lessons about the impact of justice processes on communities in times of conflict and the role of community in building peace.
Op-Eds & Blogs
2024 “Safety is a system, and reducing crime is just one part of it.” The Fulcrum
2024 “How to Measure the Impact of Community Justice in Brooklyn.” M.S. in Negotiation and Conflict Resolution, Columbia University.
2023 “Americans do talk about peace − just not the same way people do in other countries.” The Conversation. With Amy Lerman, Naomi Levy and Fiorella Vera-Adrianzén.
2022 “Mixing Images and Indicators to Build Inclusive Rigour.” Action Research +. With Tiffany Fairey and Pamina Firchow.
2022 “Everyday Peace Indicators: An effective tool for measuring hard to measure social concepts.” Open Philanthropy Effective Altruism Forum. With Pamina Firchow, Roger Mac Ginty and Naomi Levy.
2022 “Opinion: To build peace in war-torn Colombia, we need to think smaller.” DevEx. With Alejandro Castillejo Cuéllar and Pamina Firchow.
2020 “U.S. cities and states are discussing reparations for Black Americans. Here’s what’s key.” The Washington Post.
2020 “Trash is Piling up in Rural Colombia. That’s a Bad Sign for Peace.” Political Violence at a Glance. With the EPI Colombia Research Team.
2020 “Dabeiba (Antioquia), más allá de la fosa común.” El Espectador Colombia 2020. With the EPI Colombia Research Team.
2016 “Reparations and Assistance for Victims: Lessons from the ICC and Colombia.” Beyond The Hague.
2013 “On the Eve of the AU Summit: How the ICC Is Being Defended.” Justice in Conflict.
Refereed Publications
2024 Measures of Justice: A Symposium in Honor of Sally Engle Merry. Editor of Accepted Symposium in Law and Social Inquiry. With Pamina Firchow.
2023 “The Paradox of Justice: From Transitional to Everyday Justice.” Law and Social Inquiry. With Pamina Firchow and Fiorella Vera-Adrianzén.
2023 “Reimagining Public Safety: Defining ‘Community’ in Participatory Research.” Law and Social Inquiry. With Amy Lerman and Naomi Levy.
2022 “Images and indicators: mixing participatory methods to build inclusive rigour.” Action Research Journal. With Tiffany Fairey and Pamina Firchow.
2022 “Collective Justice: Ex-Combatants and Community Reparations in Colombia.” Journal of Human Rights Practice. With Pamina Firchow.
2019 “Postconflict Reparations.” Oxford Research Encyclopedia of International Studies, edited by William R. Thomson. Oxford: Oxford University Press. With Luke Moffett and Adriana Rudling.
2017 “Reparations in the Transition from Violence to Peace.” Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Politics, edited by Renée Marlin-Bennett. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
2016 “Reparations, Assistance and the Experience of Justice: Lessons from Colombia and the Congo.” International Journal of Transitional Justice.
2016 “Evaluating Transitional Justice: The Role of Multi-Level Mixed Methods Datasets and the Colombia Reparation Program for War Victims.” Transitional Justice Review. With Phuong N. Pham, Patrick Vinck, Bridget Marchesi, Douglas Johnson, and Kathryn Sikkink.
2013 "International Criminal Justice as a Transnational Field: Rules, Authority and Victims." International Journal of Transitional Justice. With Chris Tenove.
Book Chapters
2023 “From Transitional to Everyday Justice: Understanding Justice and Coexistence in Daily Life.” Reconciliation: Experiences in Colombia and the World, edited by Angelika Rettberg. Bogota: Universidad de Los Andes. With Pamina Firchow and Fiorella Vera-Adrianzén.
2023 “Transitional Justice and Development.” Research Handbook on Transitional Justice, Second Edition, edited by Cheryl Lawther, Luke Moffett, and Dov Jacobs. London: Edward Elgar Publishing.
2017 “Transitional Justice and Development.” Research Handbook on Transitional Justice, edited by Cheryl Lawther, Luke Moffett, and Dov Jacobs. London: Edward Elgar Publishing.
2015 “Reparations and the Politics of Recognition.” Contested Justice: The Politics and Practice of International Criminal Court Interventions, edited by Carsten Stahn, Christian de Vos, and Sara Kendall. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Reports & Guidelines
2022 Belfast Guidelines on Reparations in Post-Conflict Societies. Queen’s University, Belfast. With Luke Moffett, Cheryl Lawther, Kieran McEvoy, and Clara Sandoval.
2022 Handbook on Civil Society Organizations and Donors Engagement on Reparations. Queen’s University, Belfast. With Luke Moffett, Cheryl Lawther, Kieran McEvoy, and Clara Sandoval.
2019 Alternative Sanctions before the Special Jurisdiction for Peace: Reflections on International Law and Transitional Justice. Belfast: Queens University Belfast. With Luke Moffett, Cheryl Lawther, Kieran McEvoy, and Clara Sandoval.
2015 An Evaluation of Comprehensive Reparations Measures in Colombia: Accomplishments and Challenges. Cambridge: Carr Center for Human Rights Policy, Harvard Humanitarian Initiative. With Kathryn Sikkink, Phuong N. Pham, Douglas A. Johnson, Peter J. Dixon, Bridget Marchesi, and Patrick Vinck.
2014 Le Droit de Connaitre: Vérité et Reconciliation en Ituri. Amsterdam: IKV Pax Christi.
2011 Reviewing Rehabilitation Assistance and Preparing for Delivering Reparations. The Hague: International Criminal Court, Trust Fund for Victims.
Banner Photo: Peter Dixon, Nyankunde, Democratic Republic of the Congo