Bridge to Human Development or Vehicle of Inequality? Transitional Justice and Economic Structures Geoff Dancy* and Eric Wiebelhaus-Brahm † ABSTRACT 1 There has been much theorizing, but little empirical exploration, of the relationship be- tween transitional justice (TJ) and economic structures. In this article, we articulate three models implicit in present studies: TJ as a roadblock to economic growth; TJ as a bridge to human development; and TJ as a vehicle of inequality. We then perform a plausibility probe of these models using a new cross-national dataset of human rights prosecutions, truth commissions and reparations. We find that TJ is correlated with both increasing inequality and human development, while it appears unrelated to economic growth. In order to clarify the nature of these relationships, we examine the case of Argentina. We conclude that TJ, while perhaps a byproduct of global inequalities across countries, does not necessarily contribute to the expansion of aggre- gate inequality within specific countries. In fact, it might provide some tools for resist- ing economic abuses. KEYWORDS : trials, truth commissions, reparations, inequality, human development INTRODUCTION In recent years, transitional justice (TJ) scholars have begun to interrogate the rela- tionship between TJ and economic structures. Has TJ fallen short in supporting human development? Might TJ ignore structural inequality by focusing on civil and political rights reforms? Furthermore, does TJ represent a waste of resources that may be devoted to more long-lasting reforms? These questions comprise an eco- nomic turn in the literature that comes on the heels of the 2008 global financial crisis, and the realization among practitioners that growing economic disparities and social welfare rollbacks are perhaps the most pressing issues of the 21st century. 1 For instance, UN Special Rapporteur on the Promotion of Truth, Justice, Reparation and Guarantees of Non-recurrence Pablo de Greiff recently identified economic rights as central to protests and prospects for transformation in the Middle East. 2 * Assistant Professor, Tulane University, USA. Email: gdancy@tulane.edu † Assistant Professor, University of Arkansas at Little Rock, USA. Email: eric.brahm@gmail.com 1 Thomas Piketty, Capital in the Twenty-First Century (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2014). 2 ‘Report of the Special Rapporteur on the Promotion of Truth, Justice, Reparation and Guarantees of Non- Recurrence,’ UN Doc. A/HRC/21/46 (9 August 2012). V C The Authors (2014). Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please email journals.permissions@oup.com  51 International Journal of Transitional Justice, 2015, 9, 51–69 doi: 10.1093/ijtj/iju024 Advance Access Publication Date: 10 December 2014 Article at Arkansas Multisite on March 13, 2015 http://ijtj.oxfordjournals.org/ Downloaded from