The cases in this volume, which cover a broader spectrum of post-atrocity “accountability” scenarios than any previous study, offer an opportunity to think afresh about what is needed to achieve justice in the aftermath of massive, deliberately inflicted human suffering. All entail deliberate and institutionalized efforts to achieve justice. All were designed and implemented in preparation for, or in the aftermath of, a political transition. All involve some degree of negotiation among parties who were involved in causing abuses and parties who suffered as a result of the crimes. All have both domestic and international components. Moreover, all of the proposed accountability measures were justified in relation to two central, inter-related goals: (1) to respond to the suffering from past abuses; and (2) to prevent similar suffering from happening in the future.

Opportunities for victims and others to tell their stories, and for public acknowledgment of wrongs, accurately told – the most common objectives of truth commissions – are usually justified as measures to ease past suffering. Reparations processes, to the extent that they aim to remedy past harms, are also past-focused. In addition, trials of perpetrators, justified as vehicles for quelling individual or societal needs for justice, fall within the response to past violations goal.

Preventive goals are more numerous. Some, such as preventing past perpetrators from reasserting power or discouraging future perpetrators, are deterrence-driven.