Table Of Content“From my position as head of the Women’s Commission of the IVD I have
worked within the transitional justice process as well as collaborating with
academics – including the editors of this volume – in collaborative research. This
volume represents a critical reading of transitional justice in Tunisia, including
valuable engagements with both formal mechanisms and with those working
as a part of civil society, social movements and communities to advance justice.
Tunisia illustrates both the huge challenges of delivering on the promise of
transitional justice, and that innovation continues at both formal and informal
levels.”
Ibtihel Abdellatif, Ex-Chair of the Women’s Commission
of the Instance Vérité et Dignité
“This is an excellent and critical addition to the literature on transitional justice.
Using Tunisia as a case study, a mix of academic and practitioner authors are able
to evaluate the successes and failures of transitional justice after a major political
transition. The ethical and practical difculties faced by institutions and citizens
in Tunisia ofer lessons to other contexts undergoing or contemplating change.
What becomes clear in this volume is that transitional justice experiences are
dynamic, have winners and losers, and have unanticipated outcomes. This
work is highly recommended. Robins and Gready have been at the forefront
of our understanding of the opportunities and limits of transitional justice, and
this book pushes debates forward.”
Roger Mac Ginty, Professor in Defence, Development
and Diplomacy in the School of Government and International
Afairs, University of Durham, UK
“Tunisia’s process to deal with its past has been as turbulent as the country’s
transition. This volume brings together academics and practitioners who
extensively highlight the intricacies of this process and thoroughly analyse them.
It is essential and timely reading for anyone studying Tunisia’s contemporary
history or seeking to draw lessons from its transitional justice eforts.”
Habib Nassar, Director of Policy
and Research, Impunity Watch
Transitional Justice in Tunisia
This book engages comprehensively with the dynamics of the transitional
justice process in Tunisia and its mechanisms, elaborating lessons for transitional
justice practice globally.
Grounded in new empirical material as well as a broader awareness of
transitional justice, this book provides a thorough assessment of transitional
justice in Tunisia. Beyond an overview of the process, it critically engages
with key questions such as the extent to which the process articulated global
contemporary practice, such as liberal state-building and narrow conceptions
of justice as civil-political rights, and to which it generated novel approaches at
odds with the mainstream that can inform global practice. The book examines
how the transitional justice process in Tunisia has been contextualised and made
relevant to the nation’s circumstances and needs. It looks at innovation at the
level of formal mechanisms and at the dynamics of mobilisation and contestation
surrounding transitional justice both from civil society organisations and victims’
groups. Bringing together analysis from legal scholars, social scientists as well
as activists and practitioners, the book challenges the legalism of transitional
justice discourse globally, engendering a dialogue between these legal and
judicial approaches on the one hand and alternative, more diverse and radical
approaches to justice on the other, in order to both deal with the past and to
address ongoing injustice.
This frst book in English to address the dynamics and mechanisms of the
transitional justice process in Tunisia will appeal to students and scholars of
transitional justice, human rights, peacebuilding, confict and peace studies,
development, and security studies, as well as policymakers and practitioners in
these felds, and others with interests in Middle Eastern studies.
Simon Robins is Senior Research Fellow at the Centre for Applied Human
Rights (CAHR), University of York, UK.
Paul Gready is Professor of Applied Human Rights and Director of the
Centre for Applied Human Rights (CAHR), University of York, UK.
Part of the
Transitional Justice
series
Series editor
Kieran McEvoy, Queen’s University Belfast, UK
for information about the series and details of previous and forthcoming titles,
see
www.routledge.com/Transitional-Justice/book-series/TRANJ
A GlassHouse book
Transitional Justice in Tunisia
Innovations, Continuities, Challenges
Edited by
Simon Robins and Paul Gready
First published 2023
by Routledge
4 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
and by Routledge
605 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10158
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa
business
© 2023 selection and editorial matter, Simon Robins and Paul
Gready; individual chapters, the contributors
The right of Simon Robins and Paul Gready to be identified as
the authors of the editorial material, and of the authors for
their individual chapters, has been asserted in accordance with
sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act
1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted
or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic,
mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented,
including photocopying and recording, or in any information
storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from
the publishers.
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks
or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and
explanation without intent to infringe.
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British
Library
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
A catalog record for this book has been requested
ISBN: 978-1-032-00700-7 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-1-032-00701-4 (pbk)
ISBN: 978-1-003-17522-3 (ebk)
DOI: 10.4324/9781003175223
Typeset in Bembo
by Apex CoVantage, LLC
Contents
Acknowledgements ix
About the contributors x
Foreword xvi
HUGO VAN DER MERWE
Introduction 1
SIMON ROBINS
I
Informal mechanisms 41
1 Victim participation in a politicised process: the
Karama victims’ association and the search for justice
in transitional Tunisia 43
SIMON ROBINS AND HOUCINE BOUCHIBA
2 Breaking the racial taboo: black Tunisian activism as
transitional justice 63
HOUDA MZIOUDET
3 From the streets up: youth leadership of informal
approaches to transitional justice in Tunisia 88
LAWRENCE ROBINSON
4 Transitional justice, contentious politics, and the
struggle for the right to work 111
SAEROM HAN
viii Contents
5 Making and remaking the past in post-revolutionary
Tunisia: the uses of history in transitional justice 128
SIMON ROBINS, KORA ANDRIEU, AHMED ALOUI,
WAHID FERCHICHI AND HAJER BEN HAMZA
II
Formal mechanisms 151
6 The politics of technical assistance: international
involvement in Tunisia’s transitional justice process 153
ALICIA PASTOR Y CAMARASA
7 Overlooking women’s lived realities: how Tunisia’s
Truth and Dignity Commission dealt with the hijab ban 175
TINE DESTROOPER AND SAFA BELGHITH
8 The private sector and the anti-corruption discourse
in the Tunisian transition: Carthage was not destroyed 194
TAYGETI MICHALAKEA
9 Transitional justice in Tunisia and colonial legacy 212
ELHAM KAZEMI
10 Reparations in post-revolution Tunisia: at the
intersection of innovation and politicisation 231
SIMEON GREADY
Conclusions: learning from the Tunisian experience 250
SIMON ROBINS AND TINE DESTROOPER
Index 268
Acknowledgements
The editors and authors would like to thank the following agencies for their
fnancial support to research that informed the book.
• The Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC), through their sup-
port for the Transformative Justice in Egypt and Tunisia project, 2013–16
(Grant ref. ES/K013181/1);
• The Netherlands Organisation for Scientifc Research (NWO-WOTRO),
through their support for the Transitional Justice Barometer project, 2014–16
(Project no. W 08.400.102);
• The Knowledge Management Fund of the Knowledge Platform Secu-
rity & Rule of Law, for its support to the Tunisia writing workshops in
2019 and 2020 in Tunis and Sousse that led to the edited volume.
