Chapter 1 presents the main argument of Escaping Justice. Accounting for the demand for norm compliance and the domestic risks inherent in norm adoption, this chapter elaborates the ways in which governments strategically adapt transitional justice to advance state impunity. In making this argument I identify a growing global norm of accountability for human rights violations putting pressure on governments to hold perpetrators of wrongdoings to account. Adhering to international norms can carry domestic risks, particularly in cases where governments are culpable for wrongdoings. In responding to the risks of accountability, governments strategically adapt transitional justice to comply with international norms. I identify three strategies that governments use to advance impunity while seemingly complying with international norms, namely coercion, containment, and concession. These strategies are selected based on a government’s ability to control its norm response. The chapter closes with a discussion of the research methodology of the book and ethical considerations.

Post-genocide Rwanda serves as a case of strong institutional control in which the government engages transitional justice through a strategy of coercion. In this chapter I explore the Rwandan government’s response to international pressure for accountability. To advance government impunity, the government adopts a strategy of coercion, wherein a new transitional justice institution, gacaca, is implemented but subsequently monitored and controlled to advance state impunity and consolidate RPF control. The chapter begins with an overview of armed conflict in Rwanda with particular attention on the complexities of the violence experienced by individuals during the civil war, genocide, and at the hands of the RPF. I then discuss the government’s strategic adaptation of transitional justice to identify and evaluate the coercive strategy in which claims for government accountability are monitored and controlled. I explore the strategy of coercion in practice through an in-depth analysis of gacaca, which has aggressively pursued crimes of genocide while ignoring RPF abuses. To explore the coercion strategy beyond the case of Rwanda, I examine transitional justice in Burundi.

Uganda is a case of midrange institutional control in which transitional justice has been subsumed within existing state institutions through a strategy of containment. In this chapter I present the Ugandan government’s strategy wherein transitional justice is enmeshed within existing structures of power, which allows the government to monitor and control the risks of norm compliance. The chapter begins with a discussion of the history of armed conflict in Uganda, particularly the war against the Lord’s Resistance Army and the government’s abuse of Acholi civilians. I then examine the government’s adaptation of transitional justice to identify and evaluate the containment strategy in which the risks of accountability are managed by integrating transitional justice into government institutions controlled through patronage, functionally rendering impunity for the state. I explore the containment strategy through three components of transitional justice in Uganda: International Crimes Division, state-regulated customary justice practices, and the National Transitional Justice Policy. To explore the strategy beyond the case of Uganda, I examine transitional justice in Côte d’Ivoire.

In this introductory chapter I present the core tension in the study of transitional justice: the frequent failure of transitional justice to bring justice to victims of state violence. I question how governments escape justice in the age of accountability. The strategies through which a government adapts transitional justice to manage potentially risky demands for accountability have implications for who is held responsible for the atrocities of the past, a central factor for political order itself. This chapter engages the literature on norm compliance to situate my theory of strategic adaptation.

The findings of this book offer suggestions for future research as well as new directions for advocacy. The concluding chapter of the book presents a research agenda for understanding the strategic adaptation of international norms. The chapter also suggests policy prescriptions for those committed to advancing the accountability of states and holding government perpetrators of violence accountable for their actions.