Transitional Justice from an Ecocentric Perspective
Javier González-Arellano, UC3M
2025
The recent report by the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the promotion of truth, justice, reparation and guarantees of non-recurrence, Bernard Duhaime, identifies “climate change and environmental harm” as a domain of growing relevance within his mandate. This thematic focus marks a significant departure from previous reports issued by this mandate, which operates under the Special Procedures of the UN Human Rights Council. The report explicitly acknowledges that “transitional justice has overlooked issues related to the natural world, thereby reinforcing structural inequalities and paving the way for continued environmental harm”. Indeed, transitional justice has historically given limited attention to ecological and environmental concerns, despite their potential relevance for achieving the field’s objectives in certain contexts.
Transitional justice, as a dynamic and evolving field, is commonly defined—drawing from the consolidated United Nations definition—as the “full range of processes and mechanisms associated with a society’s attempt to come to terms with a legacy of large-scale past abuses to ensure accountability, serve justice, and achieve reconciliation.” Its core objectives include accountability for crimes committed; recognition of the harm suffered by victims under repressive regimes and/or armed conflicts; prevention of recurrence; and promotion of reconciliation within societies affected by violence, with a view to establishing sustainable peace.
Scholarly consensus has affirmed the multidimensional and complex nature of transitional justice. This multidimensionality is reflected in the integration of various forms of justice—retributive and restorative—as well as in the development of preventive measures. The field’s complexity lies in the fact that the success of its mechanisms is inherently conditioned by the prevailing correlation of political forces during transitional periods. These power dynamics shape narratives of the past, influence collective memory, and determine the scope and reach of justice-related policies. In this context, categories such as peace, justice, reconciliation, amnesty, and forgiveness become contested and central to the reconfiguration of the political and social order.
A pivotal question underpinning all transitional processes is the extent to which a society is willing to compromise justice in order to achieve peace and stability. The answers to this question have varied significantly, depending on the specific political context, the veto power of influential actors, international pressures, civil society demands, and the agency of innovative institutional actors. This diversity has given rise to a wide array of accountability mechanisms, both judicial and non-judicial, operating at national and international levels: criminal trials, amnesties, symbolic and material reparations, institutional reforms, and truth commissions.
One of the principal limitations in addressing human rights violations has been the tendency to privilege civil and political rights while marginalizing economic, social, and cultural rights. This oversight contradicts the principle of universality, indivisibility, interdependence, and progressiveness of human rights and is particularly problematic in contexts where structural inequalities and (re)distributive injustices have been direct or indirect drivers of conflict. Louise Arbour warned that a transitional justice agenda focused narrowly on conflict-related crimes, framed within a legalist and liberal paradigm, risks ignoring underlying structural violations—such as discrimination and inequality—that may have generated or exacerbated violence.
It is within this framework that an increasingly pressing question arises: what role can transitional justice play in addressing environmental harm perpetrated by human actions? While this issue has garnered growing scholarly interest, it is equally pertinent to reverse the question: To what extent is the environmental factor central to the conflicts that transitional justice seeks to address? Or, in other words, is there a connection between the exploitation of nature and the forms of violence targeted by transitional justice mechanisms?
This question has been particularly salient in Colombia’s transitional justice process over the past decade. In that context, both legal and non-legal mechanisms have been established to address serious human rights violations committed during the internal armed conflict. The nexus between environmental harm and armed conflict has been explicitly recognized by two key institutions: the Special Jurisdiction for Peace (JEP) and the Truth Commission (Comisión para el Esclarecimiento de la Verdad, la Convivencia y la No Repetición).
Katsa Su, gran territorio del pueblo Awá. photograph taken from the photo report El territorio ancestral como víctima, un hito en la justicia transicional.
Within the framework of the JEP, the victim-oriented legislative decrees explicitly recognize Indigenous and Afro-descendant communities as victims, extending this recognition to the territory itself. Decree Law 4633 of 2011, concerning Indigenous peoples, affirms that “the territory is a victim, considering their cosmovision and the special, collective bond that unites them with Mother Earth.” Similarly, Decree Law 4635 of 2011, directed at Black, Afro-Colombian, Raizal, and Palenquero communities, stipulates that “the restoration of the natural environment and the adoption of measures for its protection shall be basic conditions for safeguarding the inseparable relationship between territory, nature, and cultural identity.” In 2019, the JEP’s Chamber for Acknowledgement of Truth, Responsibility, and Determination of Facts and Conducts recognized the Katsa Su (Awá) and Cxhab Wala Kiwe (Nasa) territories as victims of the armed conflict, granting them rights akin to those of human beings: truth, justice, reparation, and guarantees of non-recurrence, as well as active participation in the judicial process.
The Truth Commission, in its final report Hay futuro si hay verdad (2022), emphasizes that Colombia’s armed conflict cannot be fully understood without acknowledging the historical processes of natural resource exploitation. The war reshaped territories in accordance with the strategic needs of armed actors, devastating ecosystems and profoundly affecting socio-ecosystems—that is, the interrelations between human communities, other living beings, and their physical environments (Comisión de la Verdad, Vol. V, p. 189). From this vantage point, social and environmental impacts of the conflict are inseparable: nature was not merely the backdrop to violence, but one of its principal drivers and victims.
The Commission concludes that this interpretative framework is consistent with contemporary legal and societal recognition that certain ecosystems—such as rivers, mountains, and territories—are rights-bearing subjects and should be considered victims of armed conflict (Comisión de la Verdad, Vol. V, p. 189; Vol. VI, p. 36).
Katsa Su, gran territorio del pueblo Awá. photograph taken from the photo report El territorio ancestral como víctima, un hito en la justicia transicional.
This recognition fundamentally reconfigures the conceptual foundations of transitional justice. It moves beyond a framework centered exclusively on human victims of gross human rights violations to embrace a reinterpretation that challenges the anthropocentric paradigm of the field. It calls for a holistic and ecocentric vision that addresses both the causes and consequences of violence, recognizing the inextricable link between nature and culture. In this framework, the concept of victimhood expands to include the non-human as an integral component of the harms to be redressed.
Such a perspective broadens the boundaries of victimization by acknowledging that damage to nature constitutes a critical dimension of the violence that transitional justice must confront. In doing so, it opens a new epistemological frontier that not only enriches the theoretical and practical landscape of transitional justice but also reorients it toward a more ambitious and urgent goal: the imperative of never again, seen through an ecocentric perspective.
Further readings and resources:
Arbour L. (2007). Economic and Social Justice for Societies in Transition. New York University Journal of International Law and Politics, vol. 40, n.1, pp. 1-27.
Colombia. Comisión de la Verdad. (2022). Hay futuro si hay verdad: Informe Final de la Comisión para el Esclarecimiento de la Verdad, la Convivencia y la No Repetición. Tomo V. Sufrir la guerra y rehacer la vida: impactos, afrontamientos y resistencias. Bogotá: Comisión de la Verdad.
Colombia. Comisión de la Verdad. (2022). Hay futuro si hay verdad: Informe Final de la Comisión para el Esclarecimiento de la Verdad, la Convivencia y la No Repetición.
Tomo VI, Testimonial. Cuando los pájaros no cantaban: historias del conflicto armado
en Colombia. Bogotá: Comisión de la Verdad.
Izquierdo Torres B.F. and Viaene L. (2024). Una im-posibilidad legal. El Territorio-ser viviente, víctima del conflicto armado colombiano. Algunas reflexiones desde un diálogo colaborativo interdisciplinar. EUNOMÍA. Revista en cultura de la legalidad, n. 27, pp. 72-101.
Naciones Unidas, Informe del Relator Especial sobre la promoción de la verdad, la justicia, la reparación y las garantías de no repetición, A/79/180, 18 de julio de 2024.
Photo report El territorio ancestral como víctima, un hito en la justicia transicional: www.jep.gov.co
Payne L.A., Pereira G. and Bernal-Bermúdez L. (2021). Justicia transicional y rendición de cuentas de actores económicos, desde abajo: desplegando la palanca de Arquímedes, Dejusticia, Bogotá.
