Conclusion

To date, scholarship concerned with the practices and processes of transitional justice has largely overlooked or ignored the Asia-Pacific region. It has, instead, favoured the study of transitions and the patterns of accountability and impunity for human rights violations that accompanied them, in Latin America, Africa and Europe. Yet, as we have seen in this book, the practices and processes of transitional justice are being implemented in the Asia-Pacific region as states and other actors grapple with the question of how best to address human rights violations committed in the past. In such a light, this book has sought to answer three sets of questions about the experience of transitional justice in the Asia-Pacific. First, which transitional justice practices have states in the Asia-Pacific adopted to address past atrocities? What factors influenced the decision to implement particular mechanisms, in isolation and in conjunction with other practices? What were the processes according to which these chosen practices were adopted? Second, what problems were associated with the implementation of particular transitional justice mechanisms or, indeed, decisions not to employ other practices? Did particular controversies emerge from the implementation of particular transitional justice practices? Did they give rise to public and scholarly debates about how best to address past human rights violations? Third and finally, what have been the outcomes associated with the implementation of transitional justice practices in the Asia-Pacific, for peace, democracy and human rights? What have transitional justice mechanisms achieved, both independently and in combination with other mechanisms, in the transitional and post-transitional states in which they have been adopted? In terms of outcomes, what have been the limitations associated with the particular combinations of transitional justice mechanisms chosen in the cases of the Asia-Pacific?.