Navigating the Storm: Civil Society and Ambiguous Transitions in Egypt, Libya and Tunisia

Abstract

Prosecutions were central to the transitional justice process in the 5 years immediately following the 2010–2011 Arab Spring uprisings. It is no surprise, then, that many civil society actors prioritised criminal accountability through various strategies. Given the restrictive environment that dominates both the pre- and post-transition period in Egypt, Libya and Tunisia, what strategies did civil society devise to advance transitional justice? I argue that civil society pursued three primary strategies designed to grapple with turbulent transitions that have morphed into renewed forms of repression. First, nongovernmental organisations that were established both before and after the uprisings have persistentlyprioritized the documentation of human rights abuses. Second, individual lawyers and lawyers working on behalf of civil society organisations representing victims have been persistent in their litigation attempts, despite politicised and weak judiciaries. Third, this litigation has emphasised economic crimes and corruption, in part in response to civil society strategies that aimed to generate accountability for such crimes, even if it meant that responsibility for decades of human rights violations would not be established.