A viable approach requires recognition that institutions implicated in violations cannot credibly adjudicate them. Independent investigation must be restored under a renewed UN mandate with full access to sites, evidence, and witnesses.
17 December, 2025
SUPPORT ETHIOPIA INSIGHT
A policy sold as reform entrenches the federal government’s control over the investigation of crimes it’s accused of committing
When the Pretoria Agreement was signed in November 2022, it offered a sliver of hope that accountability might follow the war in Tigray.
It pledged a “comprehensive national transitional justice policy” built through public consultations and processes aimed at truth, redress, reconciliation, and healing. That language implied openness, plurality, and a willingness to confront the past honestly.
In practice, the opposite has unfolded.
The provision of the Pretoria Agreement, particularly regarding transitional justice, lacked credibility from the outset. The agreement placed the design and execution of the process under the Ethiopian federal government, a party accused of many of the alleged violations.
The expectation was unclear. Were the mediators, observers, and agreeing parties seriously expecting individuals or institutions that committed crimes to investigate themselves and admit their own guilt? This makes no legal sense whatsoever. This wasn’t something to be considered lightly—unless there was a deliberate attempt to downplay or obscure the atrocities committed in Tigray.
The federal government then did not take necessary steps including the involvement of the signatory party, the Tigray People’s Liberation Front, and consulting with the communities seeking justice.
Tigray Interim Administration expressed its concern that the process was unacceptable, insisting that its participation be on equal footing with the federal government.
However, despite these concerns and substantial critiques from victim groups, opposition parties, civil society organizations, and specialists, the Justice Ministry held validation workshops in February 2024 to address the country’s violent past.
The Council of Ministers approved the draft policy two months later. The government then produced a transitional justice roadmap document, released in August of the same year.
Broken Foundations
Presented as a framework for peace, justice, and reconciliation, it now faces a legitimacy deficit. Tigray’s interim administration rejected the process as it was designed and controlled by federal authorities in contradiction of Pretoria’s spirit.
The distrust is rooted in painful experience. Meaningful transitional justice requires a minimal level of political will, institutional independence, and safety for participants, yet the policy excludes international experts even in an advisory role.
The gap between the policy’s language and Ethiopia’s realities is stark. Federal authorities rely on sanitizing narratives that recast atrocities as part of a “law enforcement operation”, dismiss verified evidence, and restrict access to independent investigators.
Transitional justice presupposes a commitment to building trust and achieving reconciliation, yet the federal government allows officials such as Colonel Demeke Zewdu, identified in reports as a suspect in mass atrocities in Western Tigray, to remain in senior roles.
Before even attempting transitional justice, the government should have fully implemented the Pretoria Agreement, demonstrating real commitment to process. Yet it has shown no willingness to restore Tigray’s territories to the prewar status quo, ensure the voluntary, safe, and secure return of IDPs, or allow independent investigations into all crimes. This failure is a primary driver of ongoing conflict.
This was further reinforced by the recent budget freeze and the freezing of bank accounts owned by the Endowment Fund for the Rehabilitation of Tigray (EFFORT). Coupled with fuel supply cuts, these measures were designed not only to economically strangle Tigray but also to provoke renewed conflict in clear violation of the peace agreement.
Worst of all, in another blatant violation of Pretoria, the federal government has started supporting forces intent on undermining peace and stability in Tigray, endangering civilians and jeopardizing the fragile process of reconciliation.
Under such conditions, profound mistrust exists. This makes any engagement with state institutions unimaginable for survivors. For those who have endured grave abuses, these institutions are not seen as avenues for justice but as extensions of the very structures that enabled their suffering.
The government’s track record reinforces accusations that it invoked transitional justice as a political tool to evade international pressure and to give external actors the impression that it abides by human rights policies—an excuse to resume relations with Ethiopia.
Systemic Obstacles
The government’s choices only deepen skepticism about Eritrea’s involvement in the war.
Given its international dimension, this issue cannot be resolved through domestic transitional justice. What is troubling but unsurprising is that Ethiopia’s proposed framework provides no credible route for addressing violations and abuses attributed to the Eritrean Defense Forces.
More striking is the omission of viable alternatives, including pursuing legal action against Eritrea through the International Court of Justice. Sidestepping such avenues suggests that the goal is not accountability but a face-saving closure that leaves core crimes untouched.
Its reliance on extradition as the primary avenue for accountability is especially unconvincing.
Experts have noted that during the Derg trials most exiled defendants were tried in absentia because the state failed to secure their return from host countries, underscoring how ineffective this path has been in Ethiopia’s own history.
Furthermore, the proposed prosecutorial mechanism appears crafted to contain accountability rather than enable it. The policy confines criminal trials to a special chamber housed within the judiciary, an institution widely regarded as politicized, and limits prosecutions to “high-level perpetrators” of “serious” systematic violations.
Such a design invites doubt. Federal authorities have repeatedly intervened in politically charged cases, and these patterns make it difficult to imagine that a court operating under the same mandate—without any form of international oversight—could act with genuine independence.
At the same time, the decision to focus exclusively on senior figures heightens fears that the community-level violence that defined the Tigrayan experience will be sidelined, leaving mid- and lower-level perpetrators beyond meaningful scrutiny and reducing the legal record to a narrow, sanitized account of the war.
These weaknesses exist alongside continuing obstruction.
Numerous independent investigations, including those of the dismantled International Commission of Human Rights Experts on Ethiopia (ICHREE), found reasonable grounds to believe that atrocities amounting to genocide may have occurred.
Yet authorities maintain control over evidence, restrict access to sites, and offer no credible witness protection. Testifying under these conditions exposes survivors to real danger.
Moreover, the policy’s approach to truth-telling compounds its problems. By granting the Truth Commission a mandate reaching back to 1995, it encourages selective case-building that can be steered toward political convenience rather than historical clarity.
Such elasticity fosters contestation rather than shared understanding and risks transforming the process into yet another arena for political maneuvering.
These problems are not solvable through technical adjustments. They reflect a configuration in which the state acts as the architect and arbiter of a system meant to assess its own conduct.
Misleading Analogies
Defenders of the policy often turn to comparative experiences, citing transitions where justice moved forward under imperfect conditions.
The analogies do not hold.
South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission functioned in a context where both the ANC and remnants of the National Party retained influence, but only under constant international scrutiny and enforceable external guarantees.
Mozambique’s reconciliation process unfolded while FRELIMO and RENAMO remained politically relevant, but it, too, benefited from sustained outside support.
Timor-Leste’s hybrid UN-backed model demonstrated how international oversight can compensate for weak domestic capacity.
In every one of these cases, transitional justice advanced not because perpetrators remained powerful, but because independent investigations, external monitoring, and international pressure were present.
None of these conditions exist in Ethiopia. Federal authorities maintain complete control over security, prosecution, and narrative production, with no external actor empowered to enforce standards or guarantee safety.
The international community’s reluctance to re-establish an investigative mechanism after ICHREE’s termination has further entrenched this asymmetry. Calls for “national ownership” have devolved into a rationale for international disengagement.
Credible Alternatives
The present policy cannot deliver justice for Tigray.
A viable approach requires recognition that institutions implicated in violations cannot credibly adjudicate them. Independent investigation must be restored under a renewed UN mandate with full access to sites, evidence, and witnesses.
Survivors and witnesses need a protection system administered beyond the reach of Ethiopian security agencies. All transitional justice processes, including enforcement mechanisms established by the federal government, should operate under joint authority and close scrutiny of international supervision.
International criminal accountability mechanisms, including further action by the International Criminal Court Prosecutor, must be pursued where domestic systems demonstrate unwillingness or inability.
Diplomatic and financial engagement by external partners should be conditioned on demonstrable cooperation with independent investigative processes and non-interference in evidence-gathering.
The international community now faces a decisive choice between accepting a symbolic process that deepens grievances or insisting on impartial mechanisms capable of supporting genuine stability.
Martin Plaut 