International Human Rights

ABSTRACT: Armed conflict, either internationally or internally, has caused great sufferings to the victims and society as a whole. It constitutes a situation where the rule of law is absent and human rights are no longer respected. Even though various preventive endeavours have been campaigned and implemented by the international community, the occurrences of armed conflicts are still inevitable due to political fluxes and fractions or disputes over power, which proved that preventive measures alone are not enough. This grave situation calls for the role of transitional justice to tackle the repercussions of armed conflicts in post conflicts situations, which in the long run can enhance the preventive measures in preventing the re-occurrences of armed conflict. However, the implementation of transitional justice in post conflict situations showed to be problematic due to various factors. The most prominent factor that impedes the implementation of transitional justice is the preference of States in applying realpolitik and amnesty laws to perpetrators of gross human rights violations in order to gain political stability. In responding to this problem, it is of the opinion of this thesis that under international law, accountability for gross human rights violations should remain to be the main purpose of transitional justice in implementing its approaches to establish justice and peace in post conflict situations. Based on that point of view, this thesis is aimed to discuss the implementation of transitional justice in post conflict situations in general. Firstly, it will discuss the implementation of transitional justice approaches over the history to come to terms with past atrocities and to establish a new starting ground for society in post conflict situations. Secondly, the thesis will also hold a discussion about transitional justice under the framework of international law, especially on the relation between the concept with international human rights law, international humanitarian law and international criminal law. Lastly, this thesis will use a study case from Indonesia concerning post conflict situations in Aceh and Papua after the downfall of the New Order regime in 1998 as a testing ground to apply the analyses on transitional justice approaches under the framework of international law and to asses the problems occurred in implementing transitional justice approaches in Aceh and Papua.