Gendered subjects of transitional justice

Law professor Diane Orentlicher is among a group of scholars who has staked out the most emphatic position with respect to the importance of the use of prosecutions in transitional justice, arguing that international law imposes a duty to prosecute a prior regime's human rights violations,4 and others have argued that prosecution is the optimal method of addressing past atrocities.5 These scholars argue that the ethically defensible treatment of past wrongs requires that those individuals and groups responsible for past crimes be held accountable and receive appropriate sanctions or punishment,6 and that prosecution makes possible the sort of retribution seen by most societies as an appropriate communal response to criminal conduct. In contrast to the lack of sensitivity to the issues of women and girls displayed by the South African TRC,42 the Sierra Leone TRC consulted local and international women's advocates early and often, and formulated special rules of procedure that were designed to address the particular needs of female witnesses.43 The TRC made strong recommendations with respect to legal, political, educational, and economic reforms that would strengthen the position of women in Sierra Leonean society and would render them less vulnerable to future victimization.44 It urged the repeal or reform of all statutory and customary laws that discriminated against women, the passage of new laws requiring all political parties to ensure that at least thirty percent of their candidates for all national and local elections be women, and recommended that Sierra Leone ratify the Protocol to the African Charter on the Rights of Women.