Local Conflicts and Global Norms: Transitional Justice and the Struggle for a Better World

Since the mid-1980s states that had been confronted with a bloody past have attempted to come to terms with their history through transitional justice instruments such as ad hoc, special or hybrid international criminal tribunals and truth and reconciliation commissions. Over a period of only thirty years, more than fifty instances, mostly associated with periods of radical political change following past oppressive rule, have occurred in countries of Latin America, Africa, Asia, Central and Eastern Europe, and currently even in Arab-Islamic states, like Tunisia and Morocco, too. Based on a conception of world society theory the paper identifies international and trans-local agents who contribute to this global diffusion process of norms, standards and institutions of post-conflict justice and illustrates domestic socio-legal implications of the new global legal regime of transitional justice through an analysis of the current process of dealing with the legacy of the past in the Kingdom of Morocco.