About
The Project

This project is focused on dealing with the past in conflicted societies. It is drawn from the field of transitional justice – an area of research and practice which has emerged since the 1980s looking at how societies that had experienced past political or ethnic violence (or periods of authoritarianism) should seek to address human rights violations and broader harms which occurred during such periods. In particular, this project is focused on the role of apologies and acknowledgement and how these may complement other efforts to address the past including prosecutions, truth recovery, legal litigation or reconciliation.

Transitional justice has sometimes been criticised for being too ‘state-centric’, focusing in particular on the role of the state and state actors in addressing past harms. In this project, I have sought to examine not only the role of the state but also the responsibility of non-state actors. In particular, I have been examining how armed groups or former members of armed groups can be encouraged to ‘step-up’ and taking responsibility for past harm through apologies, acknowledgement or information retrieval work designed to assist victims and survivors affected by part violence as well the broader communities and societies within which violence took place.

The project has involved reviewing existing academic, policy and practical research on transitional justice, political violence and other fields, ‘road-testing’ and disseminating the ideas generated (including via visiting professorships at Fordham University New York in 2024 and Harvard University in 2025) and producing a range of academic articles and policy reports. In addition, it has involved deploying the experience of other countries in ways which are of practical use to ongoing efforts to address the legacy of the conflict in Northern Ireland.

Kieran McEvoy is Chair of Peace, Security and Justice and Professor of Law and Transitional Justice at the Institute for Global Peace, Security and Justice, Queen’s University Belfast. He has been elected as a Fellow of the British Academy, a Member of the Royal Irish Academy and a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences. He was awarded a three year Leverhulme Major Research Fellowship in 2023.

He has conducted research in over a dozen conflicted or transitional countries contexts on topics including politically motivated prisoners, ex-combatants, victims, amnesties, truth recovery, human rights, restorative justice, apologies and the role of lawyers in conflict transition. He has authored or co-authored four books, co-edited eight books or special issues, a four volume Handbook of Transitional Justice and over seventy journal articles and scholarly book chapters. His research has garnered a number of awards including the British Society of Criminology book of the year award and the Socio-legal Studies Association article of the year 4 times (most recently in 2026 with Alex Batesmith, Leeds).

He has held visiting professor positions at the University of Cambridge, the London School of Economics, Fordham University Law School and the University of California, Berkeley. He has also been the recipient of a Global Law Fellowship at New York University and spent a year at Harvard Law School as a UK Fulbright Distinguished Research Scholar. In 2024, he was appointed a Visiting Scholar at Fordham Law School and in 2025 at the Weatherhead Center for International Affairs at Harvard University as part of his Leverhulme Major Research Fellowship.

He has conducted a large number of comparative research projects on conflict and the transition from violence in countries including South Africa, Chile, Tunisia, Argentina, Uruguay, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, Israel, Palestine, Spain and Italy. He has also worked extensively on transitional justice related themes in Colombia and he was previously a Special Advisor to the Presidential High Commission on Reintegration of Ex-combatants in Colombia.

He is a long-standing peace and human rights activist. From the mid 1990s, with three colleagues, he was involved in dialogue with republican community activists which led to the establishment of Community Restorative Ireland (CRJI) – a community organisation designed to help end IRA punishment violence and develop relationships between republican communities and the Police Service of Northern Ireland. He has remained a board member of CRJI for the past thirty years. For over twenty years, he has also been heavily involved in efforts to help address the legacy of the conflict in Northern Ireland including through the work of this Leverhulme Major Research Fellowship.