Law and the Politics of Reconciliation

This collection of essays by an international group of authors explores the ways in which law and legal institutions are used in countries coming to terms with traumatic pasts and in some cases traumatic presents. In putting to question what is often taken for granted in uncritical calls for reconciliation it critically analyses and frequently challenges the political and legal assumptions underlying discourses of reconciliation. Drawing on a broad spectrum of disciplinary and interdisciplinary insights the authors examine how competing conceptions of law time and politics are deployed in social transformations and how pressing demands for reconstruction reconciliation and justice inform and respond to legal categories and their use of time. The book is genuinely interdisciplinary drawing on work in politics philosophy theology sociology and law. It will appeal to a wide audience of researchers and academics working in these areas.