The Transition to a Just Order – Establishing Local Ownership after Conflict, A Practitioners’ Guide

This handbook and its sister publication, The Transition to a Just Order – Establishing Local Ownership after Conflict: A Policy Report, are based on the findings of a two-year long study conducted jointly by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) and the Norwegian Defence Research Establishment (FFI), in partnership with the Folke Bernadotte Academy (FBA).

The study offers a comprehensive analysis of the principle of local ownership, the key dilemmas involved in pursuing local ownership and the challenges and issues that arise when local ownership is being put into practice. It takes a closer look at strategies and mechanisms for transition in four cases studies: Afghanistan, the Balkans (Bosnia and Herzegovina and Kosovo), Timor-Leste and West Africa (Liberia and Sierra Leone). The cases have been selected to illustrate the varying degrees of international involvement in post-conflict justice and security sector reform.

The study is based on field visits by the authors to all the case study countries with the exception of Timor-Leste and numerous interviews with local stakeholders, practitioners, policy makers and established academics working on justice and security sector issues. The study has also benefited greatly from discussions which took place in a workshop held in Stockholm in May 2006 as well as a rigorous peer review process. The handbook uses the findings in the case studies and examples from these peacebuilding processes to highlight some of the key challenges.