Families of the Missing interrogates the current practice of transitional justice from the viewpoint of the families of those disappeared and missing as a result of conflict and political violence. Studying the needs of families of the missing in two contexts, Nepal and Timor-Leste, the practice of transitional justice is seen to be rooted in discourses that are alien to predominantly poor and rural victims of violence, and that are driven by elites with agendas that diverge from those of the victims. Although rights are the product of a discourse that claims to be global and universal, needs are necessarily local and particular, the product of culture and context. And it is from this perspective that Families of the Missing seeks both to understand the limitations of transitional justice processes in addressing the priorities of victims, and to provide the basis of an emancipatory victim-centred approach to transitional justice.

Simon Robins is based at the Postwar Reconstruction and Development Unit at the University of York

Chapter 1 Introduction; Chapter 2 Emphasising the local and the particular: Needs after conflict and transitional justice as a response; Chapter 3 Nepal and Timor-Leste: The politics of transition; Chapter 4 Needs of families of the Missing in Nepal: Still seeking a process; Chapter 5 Timor-Leste's transition and the Missing: A victim-centred evaluation; Chapter 6 Addressing the needs of families of the Missing: A critique of current practice in transition; Chapter 7 Beyond prescriptive approaches: contextualising a victim-centred transitional justice; Chapter 8 Towards victim-centred transitional justice