Transitional Justice is a crucial topic in the study and practice of international relations and international law. Transitional Justice refers to both the process and objectives of societies employing judicial and/or non-judicial mechanisms to address past or even ongoing atrocities and other serious human rights violations. By presenting an overview of Transitional Justice options and the V.S. role in Transitional Justice, and then analyzing four cases studies-the International Military Tribunal, the International Military Tribunal for the Far East, the UN International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, and the UN International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda-this thesis seeks to determine why and how the United States has pursued the Transitional Justice option of war crimes tribunals in certain contexts. In so doing, this thesis challenges the dominant approach to explaining U.S. Transitional Justice policy: the "legalist" paradigm developed by Gary Bass. Legalism, a variant of liberalism, postulates that liberal states pursue war crimes tribunals because their decision- makers hold a principled commitment to the rule of law. Bass further argues that illiberal states have never pursued bona fide war crimes tribunals. This thesis develops an alternative theory-"prudentialism"-which contends that any state-liberal or illiberal-may support bona fide war crimes tribunals. A variant of realism, prudential ism postulates that states will pursue tribunals not out of a principled commitment to pursuing justice through the rule of law, but as a result of a case-specific balancing of politics, pragmatics, and normative beliefs. This thesis's analysis of U.S. policy yields several conclusions about these two competing explanations. First, legalism cannot account for the fact that the V.S. has frequently pursued non-legalistic Transitional Justice options instead of or in addition to legalistic Transitional Justice options. Second, legalism fails to explain why, even in instances where the U.S. cooperated in the creation of war crimes trials, those trials did not apply to more suspected atrocity perpetrators from the applicable conflict. Third, legalism fails to explain which of the many types of war crimes trials or tribunals the U .S. has supported in a given context. Finally, legalism does not acknowledge that illiberal states have, in fact, supported bona fide war crimes trials. This thesis demonstrates that U.S. government officials may have held some normative beliefs, but that these individuals did so inconsistently. These beliefs included that at least some suspected atrocity perpetrators should be punished for their offenses. This thesis determines that political and pragmatic factors featured more prominently in the development of U.S. Transitional Justice policy. Political factors driving U.S. Transitional Justice policy included the U.S.'s relationship with its allies and adversaries, particularly at the beginning and end of the Cold War. Pragmatic factors included U.S. officials' desire to obtain access to suspects, witnesses, and evidence; whether the U.S. already had suspects in custody; and path dependency arising from earlier Transitional Justice institutions. I thus determine that, at least in the case of the U.S., prudential ism is a better theory than legalism in explaining its Transitional Justice policy. Future research should examine the Transitional Justice policies of (1) the U.S. in cases beyond the four studied in this thesis, (2) other liberal states, and (3) illiberal states to determine how they have confronted suspected atrocity perpetrators in other instances. If these inquiries revealed that the U.S. and other liberal states have often supported non-legalistic options and that illiberal states have occasionally supported legalistic Transitional Justice options, then those findings would further call legalism into question.

No description available.

Face aux atrocités perpétrées par les armées allemandes et japonaises, les Alliés en viennent à la même conclusion durant la Seconde Guerre mondiale : la meilleure réponse à la barbarie se situe dans une justice exemplaire. Châtier les plus hauts dignitaires nazis et japonais est jugé de la plus haute importance. Ces idéaux élevés de justice se trouvent pourtant être vite compromis avec les réalités d’après-guerre. Invitée par les États-Unis à juger les grands criminels de guerre japonais, la France accepte de participer au Tribunal militaire international pour l’Extrême-Orient. De mai 1946 à décembre 1948, vingt-huit prévenus comparaissent devant un collège de juges de onze nationalités différentes pour répondre de leurs responsabilités dans la guerre du Pacifique. La présence de la France à ce procès est motivée par des enjeux politiques : le nouveau gouvernement français espère reconquérir l’Indochine ; ce procès international lui offre une scène inattendue pour affirmer son prestige en Extrême-Orient. Mais les délégués français vont se comporter de manière imprévisible à Tokyo. À partir de sources inédites, cette thèse se propose de suivre leur engagement en faveur d’une justice internationale. Elle apporte ainsi une nouvelle perspective sur le procès de Tokyo et sur l’histoire de la justice transitionnelle / Alarmed by the magnitude of the atrocities perpetrated in Europe and in Asia, the Allies demonstrated their resolve to punish those responsible for such acts in 1945. From 1945 to 1948, prominent members of Nazi Germany and the Japanese Empire were prosecuted at the Nuremberg and the Tokyo International Military Trials. In Japan, the United States invited France to participate in the Tokyo trial. This trial offered her an unexpected opportunity to build prestige in the Far East; during World War II, France had lost her richest colony, Indochina, and hoped to regain it. France wanted to prove that she was a nation of rights in Asia where decolonization was gaining ground. But it is hardly surprising that her delegates did not protect the national interest. On the contrary, they just wished to improve the fairness of the Tokyo trial. Based on unpublished sources, this thesis aims to understand their commitment to international justice. It sheds new light on the Tokyo trial and on the history of transitional justice