The paper first identifies several entry points within the global climate framework to advance climate justice. It then provides insights into key findings from participatory research into community-led climate actions in Malawi and the Philippines, highlighting that affected communities are already pursuing climate justice actions that align with transformative transitional justice principles. The research shows the need for integrating communities' braided experience of harm and articulations of justice with the institutional infrastructure of the global climate regime to enable more transformative climate justice.

Participants developed measures that demonstrate a more comprehensive way of conceptualising the effects of climate change – as a wide range of profound and long-lasting climate harms, rooted in and exacerbating structural inequalities – and of responding to them in backwards-looking and forward-looking ways that enable deeper social change. As such, this transformative transitional justice process represents a new methodology and opens fresh pathways towards climate justice, which bridge the local and the global.

The process consisted of four measures: 1) a truth-telling process on climate harms experiences, causes and solutions; 2) a commemoration event for past climate harms, combined with an educational workshop on future climate change responses; 3) the design and construction of a physical memorial honouring all those affected by climate harms; and 4) reform-focused advocacy for participatory climate change response planning and implementation at the municipal level.

Documenting the measures, their outcomes and the lessons learnt, this report shows what transformative transitional justice for climate harms can look like in practice, both for communities affected by climate harms and for practitioners and other stakeholders working towards transitional and climate justice. It argues that such a bottom-up process can complement and strengthen top-down national and international efforts, as well as serve as a discrete form of justice in transition itself.

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Through the lens of the 11 indicative elements of transitional justice in the African Union Transitional Justice Policy – ranging from peace processes and justice and accountability to reparations and redistributive (socio-economic) justice – the study provides a comparative analysis of transitional justice processes in the 10 countries.

Based on interviews with key transitional justice stakeholders in each country and desktop research, the study offers detailed lessons learnt from practice and presents recommendations on the way forward for policy makers, practitioners, scholars, donors and other actors supporting transitional justice in Africa. By learning from the experiences of these countries and adopting a holistic approach, the African continent can address its complex legacies and build stronger, more inclusive societies.

This report – the first volume in a series – was produced as part of the Initiative for Transitional Justice in Africa project, funded by the European Union and implemented by a consortium comprised of the Centre for the Study of Violence and Reconciliation, the International Center for Transitional Justice, and the Africa Transitional Justice Legacy Fund.

La étude fournit une analyse comparative des processus de justice transitionnelle dans ces 10 pays, à travers le prisme des 11 éléments indicatifs de la justice transitionnelle dans la politique de justice transitionnelle de l'Union africaine. Ce rapport analyse les études de cas de JT dans les différents contextes nationaux considérés et présente nombreuses recommandations à l'intention des décideurs politiques, des praticiens, des universitaires, des donateurs et d'autres parties prenantes de la justice transitionnelle en Afrique.

En tirant les leçons des expériences de ces pays et en adoptant une approche holistique, le continent africain peut faire face à son héritage complexe et construire des sociétés plus fortes et plus inclusives.

Ce rapport – le premier volume d'une série – a été produit dans le cadre du projet Initiative pour la justice transitionnelle en Afrique, financé par l'Union européenne et mis en œuvre par un consortium composé du Centre d'études sur la violence et la reconciliation, du Centre international pour la justice transitionnelle, et du Fonds pour l'héritage de la justice transitionnelle en Afrique.