UpRights’ Valérie Gabard and Asa Solway have co-authored a comprehensive report, incorporated as part of the description of the EU Integrated Approach to External Conflicts and Crises, on supporting implementation of the European Union’s Transitional Justice Framework (“Framework”). Commissioned by the Team Europe Democracy (TED) Secretariat, the report assesses how the EU and its Member States have been supporting transitional justice in partner countries and sets out concrete recommendations for more effective implementation of the Framework. More broadly, the Report was intended to support the EU’s integrated approach to conflicts by strengthening EU and Member State support to transitional justice processes in partner countries as a fundamental means of addressing legacies of past violence, preventing the recurrence of crises, and building the conditions for more peaceful and just societies. The resulting report is a practical roadmap to promote more concrete implementation of the Framework in partner countries to address legacies of past violence and build more peaceful futures.
Background
Conflict, post-conflict and authoritarian societies coming to terms with a history of mass violence face an exceptional challenge when trying to build a stable, more peaceful future. Transitional justice has long been central to how the EU and its Member States engage with partner countries navigating exactly this challenge.
Today, the need for such support is not diminishing. Across many of the countries where the EU is most deeply engaged, the legacies of past violence remain unresolved, and the risk of renewed conflict remains real. In the DRC, decades of armed conflict have produced millions of victims whose justice needs remain largely unmet, while in Ukraine, the question of how to document ongoing atrocities, pursue accountability, and eventually build a broader process of reckoning is already being actively discussed.
Addressing these challenges is at the core of UpRights’ mission. Working on transitional justice and its implementation, UpRights operates from the conviction that durable peace requires legal mechanisms that are effective, trusted, and capable of bringing all parties into genuine processes of dialogue.
Core findings at a glance
Transitional justice is a fundamental component of the EU’s approach to supporting partner countries and should be broadly integrated in human rights, security, political and economic programming to address past violence, conflict, and instability.
The EU Transitional Justice Policy Framework is a sufficient high-level policy instrument, but it requires concrete guidance to be effectively implemented as outlined in the report.
Ensuring better implementation of the Framework requires sensitisation on the relevance of transitional justice processes in the EU and Member States to better identify where and how transitional justice applies.
Transitional justice must not be seen solely as a human rights concern, but a process that is directly linked to EU and Member State security, political, and economic interests.
Overall Recommendations
The report identifies a set of interconnected opportunities to support a more effective implementation of the Framework.
The report, while noting that criminal accountability is an indispensable component of transitional justice, also underscores that an asymmetrical support to criminal justice at the expense of truth-seeking, reparations, trauma healing, institutional reform, and reconciliation risks missing both the immediate priorities of victims and the deeper structural causes of violence.
Recognizing the importance and mutually supportive nature of both government and non-government processes is also critical. While nationally owned processes are fundamental to the legitimacy of transitional justice, the report argues that the EU and its Member States should assess whether such processes are genuinely inclusive, victim-centred, and consistent with broader transitional justice objectives and EU values. Where concerns arise regarding the nature or credibility of these processes, a range of indicators should be considered in evaluating their legitimacy, including:
In the absence of these indicators, engagement should remain cautious and carefully calibrated. At the same time, support for civil society-led and informal initiatives should not be viewed as a substitute for national processes, but rather as a parallel and equally important priority, both to complement state-led efforts and, where necessary, to sustain transitional justice objectives in contexts where official mechanisms are inadequate or compromised.
Another track identified by the report is the relationship between European leaders and the Framework itself. While the Framework is often recognized as relevant, its use is limited due to a lack of concrete guidance, expertise, and of the recognition of its benefits. This is fully addressed in the next section.
The report also emphasises that early engagement in transitional justice should not wait for the establishment of formal processes or explicit expressions of interest from national authorities. Instead, it notes that documentation during conflict, support to victims’ associations, community dialogue, and mental health and psychosocial support (MHPSS) can all lay the groundwork for future transitional justice processes and can help prevent peace negotiations from foreclosing future accountability. This perspective aligns with the EU Transitional Justice Framework in underscoring that early engagement is desirable as it paves the way for future engagement.
Supporting Better Implementation
While the research underpinning these findings focused on the integration of the EU Transitional Justice Policy Framework into a range of EU responses, the best practices that emerged point to opportunities that are not unique to that context. Indeed, the conditions that enable or obstruct effective transitional justice integration recur across a range of settings and addressing them requires a series of interrelated principles that together constitute a more comprehensive approach to embedding transitional justice in policy and programming.
A foundational step is building a fuller understanding of what transitional justice is and where it applies in relevant institutions. This means moving beyond the assumption that transitional justice is only relevant where a formal national process exists and recognising instead the full range of mechanisms that can constitute a transitional justice response. It also means understanding transitional justice not as a human rights-exclusive issue but as a framework with direct relevance to strategic interests.
Transitional justice should also be embedded structurally rather than treated as a standalone concern. This means integrating it into planning cycles, crisis response tools, conflict prevention strategies, and peacebuilding instruments from the outset. It equally means drawing explicit connections to related thematic areas, like anti-corruption for instance, that are too often pursued in parallel rather than as mutually reinforcing efforts.
Further, experience suggests that transitional justice programming is more likely to be implemented effectively where actors have prior engagement with the field. More systematic efforts to build, share, and retain expertise are needed to prevent knowledge gaps from limiting implementation. Finally, coordination is essential. Bringing together policymakers, implementing actors, and civil society to align priorities, map existing programming, and share lessons learned reduces duplication, ensures coherent messaging, and strengthens the overall impact of transitional justice efforts.
Transitional Justice as a Strategic Priority
In April 2026, the TED Initiative brought together a broad audience from the EU, Member States, international organisations and civil society to discuss the findings of the report, representing both an opportunity and an urgency to evaluate what has worked, what has fallen short, and where the EU and Member States can strengthen their approach.
Running through the entire session was a broader argument: transitional justice is not a narrow post-conflict exercise, nor a luxury for societies that have already achieved stability. It is, rather, a precondition for the stable, peaceful and rights-respecting societies that the EU’s own external action is committed to building, and it is increasingly relevant in a global context marked by democratic backsliding, the proliferation of conflicts, and the erosion of international norms.
From this perspective, the webinar was more than a review of a ten-year-old policy document. It was a call to operationalise a genuine commitment, to move from framework to practice, from principle to programming, and from good intentions to measurable outcomes for victims and affected communities.
