This book was inspired by the need of post-conflict societies to manage knowledge resources in such a way that it creates lasting restoration of durable peaceful relationships among people. It aims to demonstrate the challenges of the management of knowledge for restorative justice in Africa and the principles and practices by which these challenges can be met. To achieve this aim they applied what they call the 'Trans-dimensional Knowledge Management Model (TDKM-M)' to specific cases of restorative justice in South Africa, Rwanda, Uganda, Kenya and Liberia. After an analysis of the cases studies, the author successfully demonstrated the challenges of the management of knowledge for restorative justice in Africa and the principles and practices by which these challenges can be met. The authors revealed common challenges to restorative justice such as establishing the 'truth'; the institutionalisation of recommendations by truth and reconciliation bodies; the handling of non-cooperative offenders; and replacing of 'good' values' with 'bad' values as major challenges to restorative justice. To meet these challenges, they propose certain principles of trans-dimensional restorative justice: the establishment of a 'trans-dimensional knowledge foundation' (not some version of 'the truth'); leadership in the implementation of strategies and plans; restoration or establishment of good relations among all people (not only the ruling elites); the identification of tacit and unseen factors that will determine successful restoration of these relationships; and changing these tacit and unseen factors.

This publication defines the nature and characteristics of traditional justice systems, including issues related to jurisdiction, community involvement, composition, and a primary focus on restorative justice.

This publication is based on a project that sought to document current projects implementing restorative justice in South Africa. But what concrete progress has been made? Who is delivering direct restorative justice services to victims and offenders? What are the scope and quality of these services?

This edited collection introduces and defines the concept of “comparative restorative justice”, putting it in the context of power relations and inequality. It aims to compare the implementation and theoretical development of restorative justice internationally for research, policy and practice. In Part I, this volume compares practices in relation to the implementing environment - be that cultural, political, or societal. Part II looks at obstacles and enablers in relation to the criminal justice system, and considers whether inquisitorial versus adversarial jurisdictions have impact on how restorative justice is regulated and implemented. Finally, Part III compares the reasons that drive governments, regional bodies, and practitioners to implement restorative justice, and whether these impetuses impact on ultimate delivery. Featuring fifteen original chapters from diverse authors and practitioners, this will serve as a key resource for those working in social justice or those seeking to understand and implement the tenets of restorative justice comparatively.

This well-researched book provides a comparative discourse, along with Afro-centric knowledge, to the body of literature in restorative justice and victimology. The findings that are presented demonstrate the potential benefits of restorative justice to governments and victims who may want to implement and participate in restorative justice. These include the "community crimino-vigilance," "crimino-econometrics," and "value for money" (vfm) potentials of restorative justice policy to governments. For some victims of crime, the possibility of getting an answer to the "why me?" question which victims often ask, provides victimoautological or self-policing strategy to preventing revictimisation, and a vehicle to intra-personal harmony, reduction in fear of crime, and inter-personal reconciliation. Perhaps to some victims of crime, restorative justice is not only seen as a model of justice that gives them voice, but also as a "harmony restoration therapy." For the international audience, the book suggests that the Afro-centric knowledge is imperative to international academia and practitioners who often are commissioned to chair dispute resolution mechanisms in Africa. The success or failure of their efforts in resolving disputes in Africa could strongly be dependent on their knowledge of the core African philosophy of thoughts: cosmology (African worldview of conflict, crime, and reconciliation), axiology (African values of restoration), ontology (African nature and conception of persons), and epistemology (source of knowledge for Africans).

This monograph argues that internationally, restorative justice has been carefully considered and a high degree of consensus about the approach exists. South Africa is now well positioned -- in terms of the policy environment, existing practice as well as practitioners' perceptions -- for using restorative justice methods in the day-to-day handling of criminal offences. In doing so, the main challenge will be providing effective training on the aims, outcomes and applications of the process.

Justice and Human Rights in the African Imagination is an interdisciplinary reading of justice in literary texts and memoirs, films, and social anthropological texts in postcolonial Africa. Inspired by Nelson Mandela and South Africa’s robust achievements in human rights, this book argues that the notion of restorative justice is integral to the proper functioning of participatory democracy and belongs to the moral architecture of any decent society. Focusing on the efforts by African writers, scholars, artists, and activists to build flourishing communities, the author discusses various quests for justice such as environmental justice, social justice, intimate justice, and restorative justice. It discusses in particular ecological violence, human rights abuses such as witchcraft accusations, the plight of people affected by disability, homophobia, misogyny, and sex trafficking, and forgiveness. This book will be of interest to scholars of African literature and films, literature and human rights, and literature and the environment.

The present handbook offers, in a quick reference format, an overview of key considerations in the implementation of participatory responses to crime based on a restorative justice approach. Its focus is on a range of measures and programmes, inspired by restorative justice values, that are flexible in their adaptation to criminal justice systems and that complement them while taking into account varying legal, social and cultural circumstances. It was prepared for the use of criminal justice officials, non-governmental organizations and community groups who are working together to improve current responses to crime and conflict in their community

This book brings together Indigenous, Third World and Settler perspectives on the theory and practice of decolonizing law. Colonialism, imperialism, and settler colonialism continue to affect the lives of racialized communities and Indigenous Peoples around the world. Law, in its many iterations, has played an active role in the dispossession and disenfranchisement of colonized peoples. Law and its various institutions are the means by which colonial, imperial, and settler colonial programs and policies continue to be reinforced and sustained. There are, however, recent and historical examples in which law has played a significant role in dismantling colonial and imperial structures set up during the process of colonization. This book combines usually distinct Indigenous, Third World and Settler perspectives in order to take up the effort of decolonizing law: both in practice and in the concern to distance and to liberate the foundational theories of legal knowledge and academic engagement from the manifestations of colonialism, imperialism and settler colonialism. Including work by scholars from the Global South and North, this book will be of interest to academics, students and others interested in the legacy of colonial and settler law, and its overcoming.