UDTR Global Rights of Nature Radar

Green Transitional Justice By RachelKillean and LaurenDempster, London: Routledge, 2025, 304 pp., £31.99

Identification

Public canonical key

doi:10.1111/jols.70032

Authors

Shashi Kant Yadav

Reported year

2026

Reported language

en

Source type

book-review

First detected

2026-11-09T19:04:47.660382+00:00

Last metadata observation

2026-11-09T19:05:51.627946+00:00

Last HTTP verification

Not checked

Institutions reported by the source

Northumbria University

Reported affiliation countries

GB

Documentary abstract — original language

For whom is justice delivered after mass violence when the forest is a victim, and the soil bears the scars of war?This question lies at the heart of Rachel Killean and Lauren Dempster's Green Transitional Justice.In the field of transitional justice, which primarily analyses human victims and state crimes, 1 this book implores scholars to consider a radical but necessary widening of the lens to include ecological harm and non-human victims.The authors argue that by clinging to anthropocentric assumptions, transitional justice has been offering 'incomplete justice' (p.221).They call for a paradigm shift: to reimagine transitional justice by framing nature as a victim of mass violence.This ambitious and timely book, appearing as the world increasingly faces environmental degradation due to armed violence, 2 re-examines the purpose of transitional justice, especially in post-conflict societies.Killean and Dempster weave together socio-legal critique, decolonial and feminist approaches to justice, and insights from diverse case studies (from Colombia's jurisprudence recognizing the rights of nature to Uganda's overlooked environmental losses) to conceptualize a 'greener' approach to transitional justice.The result is an engaging work that expands the normative horizons of the field.One of the central arguments of the book is that current analytical approaches to transitional justice are rife with anthropocentric considerations and assumptions.Legal and institutional frameworks have historically treated nature as an object or passive background, relevant only insofar as human interests are affected.This entrenched human-centrism, the authors argue, creates a 'false dichotomy between humans and the natural world' (p.108), precluding states from considering the full spectrum of harm caused by war and repression.The aftermath of conflicts often includes devastated forests, poisoned rivers, and disrupted ecosystems, yet these non-human losses rarely figure in post-war commission reports and trials.Killean and Dempster trace how existing categories of legal disciplines (human rights law, international criminal law, and state-centric mechanisms) have constrained the ability of legal 1 For instance, see R. G. Teitel, Transitional Justice (2002).

Identifiers

OPENALEX

W7123342969

DOI

10.1111/jols.70032

Documentary context

Documentary family

Scholarship

Source-reported types

book-review

Natural entities mentioned

River · Forest · Ecosystem

Entity mentions are not evidence of legal recognition. Jurisdiction studied is separate from author affiliation country.

Sources

OpenAlex · Record 1 · Record 2

• DOI · https://doi.org/10.1111/jols.70032
• OpenAlex · https://openalex.org/W7123342969

Documentary status

Relevance pending

Library

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