A critique of the traditional transitional justice paradigm in the case of Egypt

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MSc Political Science

Track: International Relations

Master Thesis

A Critique of the traditional transitional

justice paradigm in the case of Egypt

‘aish hurriyya, al-‘adala al-‘ijtima’iyya’ (bread, freedom, social justice)

by

Kristina Marie Heider Student number: 11254432

June 2017 Number of Credits: 30

Supervisor: Second Assessor Vivienne Matthies-Boon Dr. Michelle Parlevliet

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

Firstly I would like to thank my family for giving me the opportunity to participate in this master’s program, thus enabling me to research my field of interest and start a professional career with this Master’s degree. I wish to express my gratitude to my parents for supporting me and giving me good advice.

Moreover, I would like to acknowledge my supervisor Vivienne Matthies-Boon of the Uni-versity of Amsterdam for her competent guidance throughout my master thesis, and for shar-ing her specific knowledge on Egypt. Furthermore, I would like to acknowledge my second reader Dr. Michelle Parlevliet of the University of Amsterdam for her passionate input during class, her expertise on transitional justice, and feedback on my previous papers.

Last but not least, I wish to express my gratitude to my peers and friends for brainstorming, giving tips and thoughts on my topic, and for their support.

Thank you for your support.

Kristina Marie Heider Amsterdam, June 2017

Abstract

This dissertation examines the paradigm of transitional justice (TJ) and represents a conceptu-al critique using the case of Egypt. It focuses on three limitations of transitionconceptu-al justice. Firstly it will be argued that TJ does not address socio-economic grievances through its mechanisms, that it failed in reforming the security sector in Egypt and lastly it disregards international actors such as the US, and their influence underpinning conflict and grievances in Egypt. Through a secondary literature analysis, the interlinkages of Egypt’s neo-liberalization and its influence on Egypt’s securitization and growing socio-economic inequality will be examined to further link it to the US influence. It will be concluded that TJ has to be more comprehen-sive and widen its scope to bring Egypt to a reconciliation stage.

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1. Introduction

Aish hurriyya, al-‘adala al-‘ijtima’iyya’ (bread, freedom, social justice). When Egyptians walked up Tahir Square on January 25 in 2011, they were protesting against far more then President Hosni Mubarak and his followers. Years of increasing authoritarianism, repression, police brutality, corruption, high unemployment, lack of freedom of speech or free elections, food price inflation, and declining socio-economic conditions in Egypt have made many civil-ians express their anger against the regime and their supporters (Khatab 2012: 34; Paciello 2011: 4; Brumberg and Sallam 2012: 1; Sayigh 2015: 3; Sriram et al. 2017: 1).

Hence, calls for radical change of the political system, demands for socio-economic rights, social justice, and dignity were following the Arab Spring uprisings in 2011 in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region and many people hoped that after years of repression, authoritarianism and human rights abuses would finally be addressed and democratization and transitional justice could take place (Sriram et al. 2017: 187). Addressing human rights abuses is an extremely critical and sensitive issue. Specifically, uncovering the truth of past abuses in societies of conflict or authoritarian regimes and getting to a stage of peace and justice re-mains a long and difficult journey (Hamacher und Kirschweng 2015: 1). One approach to address those abuses within such societies emerging from authoritarian rule or conflict is the Transitional Justice approach. Transitional justice represents a valid instrument in promoting democracy, supporting reconciliation, and rebuilding civic trust (Hamacher und Kirschweng 2015: 1). However, the situation in Egypt has been extremely complicated with regard to de-mocratization and transitional justice (Omar 2014: 1). The country has been through a long period of transition during the past few years after the uprisings in 2011. The protests on Jan-uary 25 in 2011 have been one big step in the right direction. Nonetheless, the changes be-tween several different ruling systems have made the process of transitional justice especially difficult. According to Sriram et al (2017: 192), the country has passed through three different stages since the ousting of former President Hosni Mubarak. The first was characterized by the formation of a technocratic government ruled by the SCAF that governed Egypt between February and November 2011 (ibid: 192). The second stage began with the Muslim- Brother-hood-dominated government. They came to power through parliamentary elections between November 2011 and January 2012 and the election of the President Mohamed Morsi in 2012 (ibid: 193). The third stage “[…] began with Tamarrud (Rebellion), a campaign that brought millions back onto streets, calling for the resignation of the Morsi government after only one year in office.” (Sriram et al. 2017: 193). A military coup led then to the ousting of the Morsi government in July 2013 and to the election of President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi a year later.

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However, despite all attempts of revolutionists and protesters to push for a real transformation and change towards democracy and justice in Egypt, they were constantly stalled by the mili-tary, police, and other political figures in line with the authoritarian regime (Sriram et al. 2017: 193). As a result, most of the transitions have come to an end, including the possibility of transitional justice (Sriram et al. 2017: 1). Apart from these difficulties, there are some se-rious limitations in applying transitional justice in general. The following dissertation will therefore assess and criticize the concept of traditional transitional justice by using the case of Egypt. The argument in this dissertation is that the traditional transitional justice paradigm is insufficient in promoting human rights and democracy by firstly, disregarding socioeconomic grievances, secondly, not reforming the security sector in Egypt due to a general lack of pro-ducing cooperation and willingness for reform from a security sector which is highly embed-ded into politics, and finally, by ignoring the influence of international actors such as the US and their influence on grievances, securitization, and human rights violations.

The structure of this dissertation will be as follows: firstly, the theoretical framework of this dissertation will be presented in chapter 2. This chapter will introduce the transitional justice paradigm by defining its means and mechanisms and describe its development. It is a concept developing during the past decades that became more and more popular within the field of peacebuilding, conflict resolution, post-conflict reconstruction and development (Hellsten 2012: 2). Transitional justice is an extreme complex concept dealing with past gross human rights violations committed by the previous regime (Manan 2015: 73). It is sometimes paradoxical, multifaceted and includes various elements from different justice frameworks (Hellsten 2012: 3). It refers to the “[…] theoretical frameworks of retributive/corrective jus-tice, restorative justice and distributive/social justice […]” (Hellsten 2012: 4) which makes an evaluation even more difficult. This is why, the subchapter 2.2 will go more in depth explain-ing the three different types of transitional justice: retributive, restorative, and distributive justice and clarify the terms while referring them to transitional justice implementation in former Yugoslavia, Lebanon and South Africa. After clarifying the concept of transitional justice and its different mechanisms applied in different contexts, 2.3 will specifically focus on the implementation of transitional justice in the post-Mubarak Egypt. Subsequently, the chapter 2.4 will present the dominant literature on transitional justice applied in Egypt and its critical voices. It is relevant to look at these aspects to understand the complexity and variety of transitional justice to further highlight the set of problems regarding its insufficiency in addressing the three aspects to be presented in this dissertation. The following chapter 3 will present the used methodology for examining transitional justice in Egypt. Chapter 4 will then

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form the main conceptual critique of this dissertation. Three major limitations of transitional justice will be discussed. 4.1 will introduce the complex of problems regarding socio-economic grievances in Egypt and transitional justice. This chapter will examine Egypt’s eco-nomic development and structural changes and their relation to socio-ecoeco-nomic grievances to highlight the importance of including it in the transitional justice concept. Egypt has experi-enced a long history of socio-economic ups and downs under the Abdel Nasser regime from 1951-1970, the Anwar Sadat regime from 1970 until 1981, and the Hosni Mubarak era from 1981 until 2011. Constantly, in the transitioning phase after the uprisings and the ousting of former President Hosni Mubarak in 2011, socio-economic inequality and grievances persisted under the SCAF regime from 2011 until 2012, Mohamed Morsi from 2012 until 2013, if not even worsened under the current President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi. It will be criticized that the traditional transitional justice paradigm does not pay attention to socio-economic grievances which, however, played a major role in the January 25 uprisings in Egypt. It will be argued that disregarding violations of socio-economic rights increases the likelihood of resurgence of protest and conflict which is why TJ as a concept in general has to address violations of socio-economic rights.

Moreover, the chapter 4.2 will examine the failed security sector reform in Egypt and its relation to transitional justice. It will be argued that without reforming the security sector in Egypt and transforming their relationship to power, human rights violations cannot be ad-dressed and the democratic transition cannot be completed. This chapter focuses primarily on the different security branches within the Ministry of Interior and the Ministry of Defense and their development and embeddedness into politics. Egypt became a police state even tougher and more repressive than under the Mubarak regime (Szoke-Burke 2015: 7) and is currently experiencing under President under al-Sisi the largest systematic repression campaign led by the security and military forces (Sriram et al. 2017: 244). A special emphasis lies on the ina-bility of transitional justice to procure willingness for a security sector reform. The chapter will also highlight the importance of cooperation of high political figures to achieve such a reform. It is relevant to introduce the embeddedness of the security sector into politics and its unwillingness of reforming this sector to further strengthen the argument of a general lack of transitional justice mechanisms in producing cooperation and willingness for reform.

Furthermore, 4.3 will then emphasize the lack of accountability of international actors in the context of transitional justice. To do so, the military aid of the US and its influence on Egypt’s state stability and securitization will be examined. Transitional justice focuses mainly on national actors and does not hold international actors accountable (European Union 2015:

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8). The influence of the US and how it maintains Egypt as a security state is genuinely ig-nored by transitional justice. However, it will be argued that the US contributes implicitly in supporting human rights violations in Egypt which is why transitional justice has to incorpo-rate the influence of international actors on human rights violations.

After analyzing and highlighting these three limitations, chapter 5 discusses their interlinkag-es in the context of the neo-liberalization in Egypt and how they reinforce each other. Finally, chapter 6 will conclude that TJ has to be more comprehensive and widen its scope to bring Egypt to a reconciliation stage.

Analyzing transitional justice is an extremely important issue. The long-term impact of di-verse transitional justice mechanisms are not yet fully understood and further research and empirical studies are needed. The critique on the traditional transitional justice approach in this dissertation shall call attention to its disadvantages and limitations while using Egypt as a case study. In showing these three limitations of the traditional transitional justice paradigm, suggestions for improvement and modification proposals will be given to adjust this approach to the specific conditions in Egypt.

2. Theoretical framework

This chapter presents the traditional transitional justice paradigm and how it is been under-stood in this dissertation. Even though, there have been a lot of efforts to implement transi-tional justice mechanisms in Egypt it still remains difficult and has not yet been fully success-ful. This chapter aims to present how transitional justice can be understood. First, the defini-tion and development of transidefini-tional justice will be presented. Subsequently, the three differ-ent types of transitional justice: retributive, restorative, and distributive justice will be intro-duced and gone into more in depth, while comparing them to transitional justice implementa-tion in former Yugoslavia, Lebanon and South Africa. After clarifying the concept of transi-tional justice and its different mechanisms applied in different contexts, the focus lies on the implementation of transitional justice in the post-Mubarak Egypt to further approach the case of Egypt with regard to transitional justice. Finally, the dominant literature on transitional justice applied in Egypt and its critical voices will be introduced to further highlight the set of problems and the limitations of transitional justice to open the discussion for further im-provements.

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2. 1 Transitional Justice: Definition and development

To begin with, transitional justice is a concept dealing with past gross human rights violations committed by the previous regime. (Manan 2015: 73) It is a concept which has developed during the past decades and has become more and more popular within the field of peace-building, conflict resolution, post-conflict reconstruction and development (Hellsten 2012: 2). It can be seen as a new policy framework which provides international development and brings together different aspects of human development and human security with democratic governance (Hellsten 2012: 2). Domestic accountability and internationalized criminal justice for human rights violations of former regimes reach back to the Nuremberg Trials and Tokyo tribunals (Sriram et al. 2017: 15). Hence, mechanisms concerning post-atrocity justice mostly developed after the Second World War. They became factors of political transition in South-ern Europe in the late 1970s, and more intensively through transitions in Central and South America in the 1980s and 90s as well as during the post-communist revolutions in Eastern Europe in the 1990s (Sriram et al. 2017: 2; González Enríquez et al. 2001)

Transitional justice differs from traditional approaches, arguing strictly from the human rights approach or the conflict resolution approach, as TJ includes non-judicial and judicial measures (ICTJ 2017: 1). Judicial and non-judicial institutions, new constitutions and legisla-tions have been created in order to achieve a new language of change (Sandoval 2014: 181). It can be seen as an ever expanding field of theory and practice which involves a whole pool of measures (Sriram et al. 2017: 2). Kasapas (2008: 60) sees transitional justice

“[…] as a sum of complementary mechanisms and processes (judicial and non-judicial) aiming to […] rebuild the ruined or dysfunctional judicial infrastructure through the reestablishment of the rule of law[,] deal with the crimes committed by the agents of the former regime by trials or truth commissions […]” to finally respond to systematic and structural injustices that lead to conflict.

The International Center for Transitional Justice (ICTJ) defines transitional justice as follows:

“Transitional justice refers to the ways countries emerging from periods of conflict and repression ad-dress large scale or systematic human rights violations so numerous and so serious that the normal jus-tice system will not be able to provide an adequate response.” (ICTJ 2017: 1)

Transitional justice “[…] is made up of the processes of trials, purges, and reparations that take place after the transition from one political regime to another.” (Elster 2004: 1) It is based on the concept of accountability and steps in when systematic human rights abuses take place and the country’s legal, political and/or judicial institutions are weak, politicized, cor-rupt or under-resourced (ICTJ 2017: 1) The major and constant attributes are “[…] the recog-nition of the dignity of individuals; the redress and acknowledgment of violations; and the aim to prevent them happening again.” (ICTJ 2017: 1) Additionally, aims of transitional

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tice include the establishment of accountable institutions and the restauration of the confi-dence in them, the creation of access to justice for the most vulnerable in the society, the re-spect for the rule of law, support of peace processes and conflict resolution, the possibility of addressing underlying causes of conflict and marginalization, and finally support reconcilia-tion (ICTJ 2017: 1). To achieve these goals, the ICTJ (ibid: 1) distinguishes four main ap-proaches of transitional justice and differentiates among fact-finding, criminal prosecutions, reparations for human rights violations, as well as reform of law and institutions such as po-lice, judiciary, and military. Hence, transitional justice “[…] clearly has backward and for-ward looking dimensions that relate, for their part, to the theoretical frameworks of retribu-tive/corrective justice, restorative justice and distributive/social justice […]” (Hellsten 2012: 4) which makes an evaluation even more difficult. Furthermore, the long-term impact of di-verse transitional justice mechanisms is not yet fully understood (ibid: 2) In fact, transitional justice is sometimes paradoxical and multifaceted (ibid: 3). It includes various elements from different justice frameworks (ibid: 3). Hence, it can be seen as more action-oriented than val-ue-based (Hellsten 2012: 3). In total, transitional justice is influenced by the view of “[…] domestic and international law, social ethics, political change, philosophical analysis, histori-cal context, empirihistori-cal experiences, and cultural environment.” (ibid: 4) Therefore, an evalua-tion of transievalua-tional justice may sometimes be difficult or even contradictory since suggesevalua-tions and assessment come from different disciplines (ibid: 4). Nonetheless, transitional justice has a normative nature since it describes an evolvement from “[…] a worse to a better state of affairs; from an authoritarian regime towards democracy; from human rights violations to the rule of law; from poverty and marginalization to social justice and political participation.” (Hellsten 2012: 4). It includes diverse mechanisms such as truth, reparation, justice, and the guarantee of non-recurrence (Sandoval 2014: 181) and can be divided in the three types of transitional justice which will be discussed in the following subchapter.

2.2 Three different types of transitional justice: retributive, restorative, and dis-tributive justice

According to (Kasapas 2008: 60) retributive justice and the rule of law play a major role in the aftermath of a conflict. Its aim is to restore the order in a divided society, to rebuild the institutional infrastructure, and to promote and improve public confidence in the new gov-ernment and the judicial system (Kasapas 2008: 61). Furthermore, re-establishing the rule of law is obligatory to prosecute human rights abusers (ibid: 61). The retributive justice

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proach includes criminal courts on an international and national level (ibid: 61). In the former Yugoslavia, the most frequently applied and developed transitional justice mechanism were criminal prosecutions of war crimes (ICTJ 2009: 1). The purpose of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) was to bring an end to crimes on human rights due to prosecutions and deterrence (Rakate 1999: 19). The ICTY is an international criminal tribunal and external body created by foreign political powers and has the power to prosecute (Rakate 1999: 18). Contrarily, truth-seeking initiatives such as in South Africa have not taken place in former Yugoslavia (ibid: 1). None of the countries in the former Yugoslavia have made an effort to examine the causes of the war crimes against all ethnicities (ibid: 1) Truth seeking has been more successful in South-Africa (Lamb and van der Merwe 2009: 24). Ad-dressing the legacies of apartheid has played a major role in the development of the transi-tional justice field (ICTJ 2017a: 1). The ICTJ supported victims to be taken seriously by the prosecution authorities and their petition before the constitutional court (ICTJ 2017a: 1). Moreover, the growing human rights movement and developing international humanitarian law majorly contributed towards that direction (Kasapas 2008: 61). Hence, in the context of retributive justice, trials play the most significant role (ibid: 61). Kasapas (2008: 62) argues that “[…] by prosecuting the perpetrators in trials under the rule of law, retributive justice serves as a deterrent against acts of private revenge.” Further, he states that “[…] prosecution serves to break the circle of impunity and discourages future violations making clear that no individual is above the law.” (Kasapas 2008: 62)

In addition, restorative justice aims to address human rights violations in focusing on an active participation of the community (ibid: 64). This concept is based on flexible rules rather than a fixed procedure (Kasapas 2008: 64). and includes activities such as memorials, apologies, reparations, and institutions (Sriram et al. 2017: 4). Truth commissions are the most popular mechanism within the concept of restorative justice (Kasapas 2008: 64). Ac-cording to Kasapas (2008: 64) truth commissions “[…] are temporary, non-judicial bodies created most of the times by national governments with the contribution of the international community to establish a historical record of the committed human rights violations, promote truth telling and provide a place for the victims to publicly express their suffering.” The pur-pose of those truth commissions is to investigate the truth about past human rights abuses (Rakata 1999: 7). In contrast to retributive justice that focuses on the perpetrators, restorative justice focuses on the victim (Kasapas 2008: 64). Especially, truth commissions support the process of healing traumas without forgetting the past (Brahm 2005: 19). Their aim is to re-build the relationship at the community and individual level (Brahm 2005: 19). Unlike

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cutions, truth commissions might be more therapeutic and treat victims with respect and dig-nity (Rakata 1999: 14). The mechanisms as well as dilemmas of transitional justice vary from country to country (Rakate 1999: 6) and depend on their historical circumstances (ibid: 15). To be more specific, the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) allowed perpetrators of human rights to give a full account of what happened during apartheid to achieve reconciliation and national truth (Rakata 1999: 19). In the case of South Africa, am-nesty was a price to be paid to achieve a peaceful transition (ibid: 17). The TRC contributed to reconciliation by promoting national truth and stop the silence about past abuses (Rakata 1999: 34). Moreover, the willingness of political leaders played a major role towards a peace-ful solution (ibid: 25). In South Africa, for perpetrators of gross human rights violations am-nesty were granted for telling the truth (ibid: 33). In total, it can be argued that the will of high political leaders to cooperate plays an extremely important role since transitional justice does not have the means to bring willingness. This will be discussed later in the chapter of the failed security sector reform in Egypt. The ICTJ works with the South African Coalition for Transitional Justice (SACTJ) to find a strategy to provide reasonable reparations to all victims of human rights abuses (ICTJ 2017a: 1). In general, the public perception of the transitional justice process in South Africa has been widely positive. Lamb and van der Merwe (2009: 24) argue that in South Africa transitional justice contributed to political reconciliation and helped initiating a peaceful change (ibid: 24). However, it failed to significantly build accountability of political leaders, transparency in government, and a culture of human rights (Lamb and van der Merwe 2009: 24).

In sum, retributive and restorative justice concepts of transitional justice focus more on consequences of conflict, distributive justice aims to address causes of conflict addressing the structural factors that led to conflict (Mani 2002, Kasapas 2008: 66). Major points within distributive justice are reparations (Rakate 1999: 34; Kasapas 2008: 66). This mainly includes correcting past wrongs, to re-establish rights and property, as well as to help with rehabilita-tion and satisfacrehabilita-tion of the victims (Theissen 2004: 8). To be more specific, repararehabilita-tions can be materialistic or in form of acknowledgements, apologies and honoring or commemorating the victims (Kasapas 2008: 67). In the end, reparations are a mechanism to engage with financial and practical factors of social injustice, a way for the new government to finally address crimes that have been committed (Kasapas 2008: 67). In the case of Lebanon, the ICTJ pro-moted the establishment of a truth commission (ICTJ 2014: 9) as well as the right to repara-tions (ibid: 13).

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The transitional justice approach applied in Lebanon implied a set of social and practical po-litical reforms to address the 1975-1990 war in Lebanon and the following ongoing popo-litical violence (ICTJ 2014: 1). Its aim was to introduce means to increase civic trust in state institu-tions and to reduce Lebanon’s ongoing vulnerability to political violence (ibid: 1). Diverse working groups of civil society organizations in Lebanon, including victims, academics and researchers put forward recommendations linked to transitional justice in cooperation with the ICTJ (ibid: 1). Nonetheless, in Lebanon there has been a lack of accountability for those who committed abuses of humanitarian law and international human rights law (ibid: 5). Moreo-ver, there was no comprehensive or effective truth-seeking process and reparation efforts were non-existent (ibid: 5). One big success in 2014 was a Draft Law for Missing Persons and For-cibly Disappeared including the legal and institutional framework for the right to know (ICTJ 2014: 7). In the end, also in Egypt these three types of transitional justice can be found, which will be discussed in the following chapter.

2.3 The implementation of transitional justice in post-Mubarak Egypt

According to Sriram et al (2017: 195) the transitional government in the post-Mubarak era introduced a “[…] necessary but insufficient element of democracy – a reasonably credible set of referenda and elections that addressed next steps during the transition […]” (ibid: 195). Following great strikes and protests, the government initiated divers elements of transitional justice. The ICTJ (2017a: 1) argues that the implementation of Transitional Justice in the spe-cific case of Egypt is reduced to “technical assistance” (ICTJ 2017a: 1). The work of the ICTJ in Egypt is to help local actors on transitional justice options and their capacity to improve their current situation (ICTJ 2017a: 1). Sriram et al (2017: 195) mention that key Mubarak regime figures as well as policemen accused of killing demonstrators were put on trial. Fur-thermore, fact-finding commissions were initiated to investigate in the killings during the up-risings (ibid 195). In addition, the government started the National Council of Care for the Revolution Martyrs’ Families and Wounded to allocate limited monetary compensation (ibid: 195). Also, in March 2011 the Ministry of Interior stated that their specific State Security In-telligence sector was closed (ibid: 195). In November 2011, the government declared “[…] a “treachery law” (qanoon al-ghadar) to ban former leaders of Mubarak’s National Democratic Party from public office […]” (ibid: 195). Lastly, the Constituent Assembly drafted a new constitution (ibid: 195). Nonetheless, transitional justice struggled to obtain credibility in Egypt (ibid: 195). Especially during the trials of Mubarak and his close partners during the

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SCAF period “[…] the Ministry of Interior refused to cooperate with prosecutors seeking evi-dence of their involvement in alleged crimes.” (Sriram et al. 2017: 195). Moreover, the fact-finding bodies were nontransparent and insufficient. Public hearings did not take place and findings were not published (ibid: 196). Furthermore, human rights violators have been most-ly released without charge and compensation of victims and survivors failed due to unclear guidelines and impunity of the perpetrators (ibid: 196). Besides, the constitutional drafting efforts disappointed many due to the Islamists who dominated the Constituent Assembly and their lack of sympathy for views of religious and ethnic minorities, secular party representa-tives, and independent women (ibid: 169).

Thereinafter, according to the ICTJ (2017a: 1) local actors such as “[…] officials, judges, hu-man rights activists, journalists, victims’ groups, women’s groups, and youth organizations […]” (ibid: 1) have been interviewed. One response of the ICTJ has been a training of human rights activists in documenting human rights abuses. Furthermore, the ICTJ discusses possible cooperation with the European Union, United Nations and the World Bank. The European Union (2015: 8) emphasizes that “[t]here is no ‘one-size-fit-for-all’ approach to transitional justice: any approach must be based on the needs and objectives of the context and country concerned.” It is really important to take international actors and foreign governments as well as enterprises and their influence on the conflict into account. (European Union 2015: 8). The European Union (2015: 15) strikes that support to transitional justice should be more connect-ed with expertise, resources, and actions of other international as well as regional actors, es-pecially at the UN level. It can be pointed out that all presented transitional justice mecha-nisms are not designed to address international actors and their influence on conflict. This presents a major gap and will be examined in chapter 4.3.

All the presented efforts to apply transitional justice in Egypt lead to the fact that “[…] those in control, whether during the SCAF transition or the Morsi government, were not deeply committed to democratic transition.” (Sriram et al. 2017: 196). Sriram et al (2017: 196) men-tion a pact between the Muslim Brotherhood and the military that the Muslim Brotherhood would not push towards military trials or investigation in their business operations and the military tolerated the rise of the Muslim Brotherhood (ibid: 196). The embeddedness of the security forces into politics will discussed in chapter 4.2.

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2.4 Critical voices about transitional justice in Egypt

Following the voices of various international experts, transitional justice provides a rich re-source for Egypt and its transition (Abou-El-Fadl 2012: 319). However, transitional justice is more and more expected to address various issues beyond traditional gross human rights vio-lations. (Sriram et al. 2017: 6). Applied in Egypt, there are some voices of critique that have to be mentioned.

One of them would be Catherine Turner (2016: 1) calling transitional justice A Challenge and an Opportunity. She argues that the reason why transitional justice is not feasible in Egypt starts with its definition itself. As already mentioned, transitional justice includes means to hold political leaders accountable for their abuses as well as to promote political reconcilia-tion. However, Turner (2016) argues that applied in Egypt the focus of the current govern-ment is too narrow and zeros in only on the police response to protest (ibid: 1). Further, she argues that the focus on which former officials should be prosecuted is too narrow. The lim-ited scope on those killed or injured in the Egyptian protests enables the Sisi government to get around any investigation of the role of the SCAF or security as well as political allies for the past fifty years. Turner argues that “[…] [b]y co-opting the language of transitional justice and making limited gestures in this regard, Sisi seeks to establish the government’s legitimacy and deflect demands for more wide-ranging reforms.” (ibid: 1). The capability of transitional justice is inherently limited in addressing broader issues such as the reformation of the state apparatus or general demands for equality through addressing socio-economic grievances. Similarly, Omar (2014) argues in her article The Delay of Transitional Justice in Egypt that state institutions need to be reformed and the spread of hatred through the media needs to be stopped. She emphasizes that the success of transitional justice in Egypt mainly depends on the Egyptian’s participation rate especially on those who have been previously marginalized. She further emphasizes that as long as civil society organizations and media are biased and politicized transitional justice will be further delayed (ibid: 1). She claims that transitional justice in Egypt “[…] needs the proper psychological climate and community support for rec-onciliation to take place, which necessitates transparency and inclusion at every stage” (Omar 2014: 1).

Transitional justice has been more and more linked to socioeconomic rights, development and even corruption. (Sriram et al. 2017: 32). According to Turner (2016: 1) one of the reasons why transitional justice has failed in Egypt is “[…] a disconnect between the dominant under-standing of transitional justice in international law and policy, and that which was articulated

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in Egypt.” She emphasizes that the major demands during the revolution in Egypt have been for a better social and economic equality. Similarly, Ziad Abdel Tawab (2012: 97) argues in his article The Crisis of Transitional Justice Following The Arab Spring - Egypt As A Model that the real challenge is not cultural oppression, institutional fragmentation, or the culture of impunity, but to tackle “[…] deep socioeconomic and cultural roots which were cultivated through police domination and using the bureaucratic machinery of post-independence institu-tions in an attempt to protect the regime from the very popular uprisings seen today.” (ibid: 99). Likewise argues Simon Robins (2015) in its review essay Mapping a Future for Transi-tional Justice by Learning from Its Past discussing the book from Kirsten J. Fisher and Robert Stewart (2014) Transitional Justice and the Arab Spring Robins criticizes transitional justice in a matter of the politics that accompany transitional justice. He argues that social and eco-nomic factors have not been addressed through transitional justice since they are not seen as justice issues. However, the Arab Spring has been confronting exactly these issues since Egyptians have suffered a high unemployment rate and rising food prices (Robins 2015: 186). Robins states the importance of transitional justice moving away from focusing only on civil and political rights going beyond electoral democracy (Robins 2015: 186). He criticizes that “[t]he narrow lens of transitional justice has sought to bring justice and accountability to those politically responsible for acts of violence but not to the economic elites who steer the logic of structural violence that underpins chronic violations of social and economic rights.” (Robin 2015: 186). He further strikes the importance of confronting poverty and unemployment through engaging with the demands from the Arab Spring to challenge the narrow approach of transitional justice (Robin 2015: 186). He argues that “[s]uch discourses challenge structur-al violence, typified by the horizontstructur-al inequstructur-alities that have traditionstructur-ally been perceived as beyond the remit of transitional justice.” (Robin 2015: 186). Nonetheless, the traditional tran-sitional justice approach is based on the idea of transitions to liberal democracies which there-fore still influences the priorities of this field of work (Turner 2016: 1). The major focus on civil and political rights and the absence of social justice still present one of the biggest limi-tations of transitional justice which will be addressed within chapter 4.1.

Furthermore, Omar (2014) criticizes the delay of the transitional justice process in Egypt and its influence on Egyptians daily lives. She strikes that Egyptians did not properly distinguish between collective retribution and justice. In addition, the main argument was focused on hu-man rights abusers. She mainly emphasizes how people’s dehu-mands have not been or have been late responded by the government and disagreements about transitional justice have made the situation more critical (ibid: 1). Therefore, protests and clashes have continued since

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Egyptians have not experienced justice. She further strikes that all police officers who com-mitted crimes in 2011 have been set free. She reflects on the pursuit of transitional justice in Egypt and how government committees and civil society initiatives investigated the killing and torture of protesters. However, none of them have been efficient or transparent. The lack of transparency and efficiency of transitional justice mechanisms have been a major issue since the Arab Spring. Several calls to incorporate truth commissions or other non –judicial transitional justice mechanisms have failed (Abdel Tawab 2012: 99). The “[…] absence of recognition and justice for violations, the compensation fund appears more designed to ap-pease and silence dissent then to ensure accountability, justice, and reconciliation.” (ibid: 105). Moreover, no psychological or legal assistance has been allocated (ibid: 105). In the end, Abdel Tawab (2012) even states that the role of the committee was reduced to a fact-finding mission with no further plan as to what might happen after the investigation. Accord-ing to Abdel Tawab (2012: 106) the members of the committee were forbidden from publish-ing their findpublish-ings or go to the press. To summarize, he speaks of a “crisis of transitional jus-tice” and argues that the implementation of transitional justice has not yet been sufficient. Omar (2014) further argues that more focus should be placed on how the ministry can start to achieve transitional justice. She mentions that the process should be independent from the government, especially with regard to the restructuring and reformation of institutions and investigation of crimes to avoid a selective or retributory process.

Another challenge that Turner (2016) presents in her article relies on transitional justice as being an externalized framework. Even though she mentions advantages such as clear criteria for negotiations, it cannot replace a national dialogue on priorities. She argues that “[…] ex-ternal frameworks cannot supplant the need for genuine national dialogue on the purpose of transition and the nature of justice being sought.” (Turner 2016: 1). Therefore, she argues that a clearer direction of transition is needed which requires an open national debate about indi-vidual and collective rights and the nature of the state. Moreover, Robins (2015) stresses the importance of focusing transitional justice more on local solutions and creativity. Besides, he mentions that topics such as gender and political Islam are usually excluded from transitional justice processes (Robins 2015: 183). He emphasizes that the Arab Spring is probably one of the first large-scale contexts where “[…] the liberal presumptions of transitional justice are not entirely shared by either the elites implementing posttransition policy or by the larger population, and which cannot be enforced under donor pressure.” To be more specific, Islam-ist players in the Arab spring who might disagree with many of the assumptions of western secular rights language, and who are head players, have been mostly been excluded by

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tional justice practice (Robins 2015: 187). Therefore transitional justice does often not con-form to local mind-sets that resist liberalism and globalized ideologies and can be seen as a “[…] product of the collision of the strategies, institutions and norms of a global practice with the everyday lives of local actors impacted by violations.” (Robins 2015: 188).

In addition, Abdel Tawab (2012) evaluates the transitional justice process in Egypt after the Arab Spring and how calls from human rights NGOs to end the state’s human rights viola-tions, repressive practices, and the impunity of the government have largely been ignored. Abdel Tawab (2012: 96) mainly criticizes that the following governments denied to present a clear roadmap of the transition to democracy in Egypt and were instead “[…] continuing to resort to repressive measures including arbitrary arrests, torture, intimidation, confiscation of newspapers, defaming the opposition, and harassing restricting the work of civil society.” Sriram et al (2017: 5) argue that “[…] a key obstacle to transitional justice and related reforms has been the endurance of key elites and institutions, regardless of the removal of a head of state and his inner circle.” Abdel Tawab (2012: 96) stresses that human rights violations in Egypt even intensified within the two years following the ouster of President Mubarak (ibid: 97). Therefore, the following governments showed their refusal to provide accountability for past abuses (ibid: 97). Moreover, he emphasizes how authoritarian practices of the past gov-ernment have been reproduced (ibid: 97). Further, he criticizes how long the history of police brutality in Egypt is and that it can still be considered to be a police state (ibid: 97). Abdel Tawab (2012: 97) mentions human rights violations such as “[…] enforced disappearances, torture and other cruel and degrading treatment, sexual assault against political and criminal inmates, extrajudicial killings, and arbitrary arrests and detentions of thousands of political opponents.” He further strikes that all such crimes have gone unpunished even after the oust-ing of Mubarak (ibid: 97). He criticizes that the failure of form mechanism to ensure a transi-tion to democracy has made Egypt even more instable (ibid: 98). He further criticizes that the judicial system has been unwilling to prosecute state agents for human rights abuses. In gen-eral, there has been a lot of criticism about the failed security sector reform in Egypt. Yezid Sayigh stresses in his article Missed Opportunity: The Politics of Police Reform in Egypt and Tunisia that without reforming the security sector in Egypt and transforming their relationship to power, the democratic transition will not be completed. (Sayigh 2015: 3). Until today, there was still no proper security sector reform in Egypt (Sayigh 2015: 3) which will be discussed within chapter 4.2.

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This chapter has shown that the results of transitional justice mechanisms vary tremendously in different countries with different backgrounds. With all these criticisms in mind, the fol-lowing chapters will exclusively focus on Egypt and the inability of transitional justice to ad-dress socio-economic grievances, to ensure a security sector reform in Egypt, and to hold in-ternational actors accountable,

The subsequent chapter will now present the methodological approach which was applied in this dissertation.

3. Methodology

Speaking of a “crisis of transitional justice” (Tawab 2012: 1) in Egypt, this master thesis aims to criticize the traditional transitional justice approach by using the case of Egypt and discuss-ing three specific variables.

This chapter will start with a definition of how secondary literature analysis as a form of methodology is understood in the context of this dissertation and how it is combined with critical research as an approach in this dissertation. Finally, after clarifying the terms it will be elaborated why the focus lies on the inability of transitional justice to hold international actors accountable, to address socio-economic grievances, and to ensure a security sector reform in Egypt

This dissertation will primarily rely on secondary literature about Egypt. One major reason for that is the language barrier since most of the primary literature and official website of Egyp-tian Ministries are written in Arabic language.

According to Johnston (2014: 619) a secondary literature analysis as an “[…] analysis of data that was collected by someone else for another primary purpose.” It is an investigation on existing data in the specific field of interest and is therefore a review of previously collected data (Johnston 2014: 620). With regard to conducting own research, the research question and the chosen method determines the specific area of research and how it is going to be investi-gated (ibid: 620). Secondary literature analysis provides an excellent tool “[…] to apply theo-retical knowledge and conceptual skills to utilize existing data to address the research ques-tions.” (Johnston 2014: 620).Therefore, the approach in this dissertation is to recombine oth-ers work into a new argument and to be able to give recommendations at the conclusion. Sec-ondary literature analysis offers many opportunities to write a critique. It makes it possible to

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further research the area of interest through “[…] replication, re-analysis and re-interpretation of existing research.” (Johnston 2014: 624). Therefore, thanks to secondary literature analysis new ideas can be tested based on previous research. The aim of this research is it to analyze three different variables in Egypt on the basis of already conducted research. The argument in this dissertation is therefore that the traditional transitional justice approach is insufficient in promoting human rights and democracy by disregarding socioeconomic grievances, not re-forming the security sector in Egypt due to a general lack of producing cooperation and will-ingness for reform from a security sector which is highly embedded into politics, and finally, by ignoring the influence of international actors such as the US and their influence on griev-ances, securitization, and human rights violations. This dissertation is therefore structured as follows: first, the socio-economic grievances in Egypt will be addressed to criticize that tran-sitional justice does not address violations of socio-economic rights. Subsequently, the failed security reform in Egypt will be examined and how that is linked to a failure of transitional justice. Thirdly, the influence of the military aid of the US to Egypt will be analyzed to further stress the inability of transitional justice to hold international actors and their influence on conflict accountable. By using literature about these three variables it is possible to highlight and criticize the limitations of the traditional transitional justice approach in the matter of these three factors in Egypt and to come up with further suggestions.

Through secondary literature analysis of these three variables and the traditional transitional justice approach in Egypt it is possible to generate new knowledge to criticize transitional justice and how it is applied in Egypt. This dissertation is therefore written in a form of a cri-tique. Critical research discerns from “uncritical normal research” in many aspects (Freikamp et al. 2008: 7). Critical research includes different factors and measures than normal research. It takes the consequences of its research and the usefulness for the researched subjects into account (Freikamp et al. 2008: 7). Moreover, critical research tries to scrutinize traditional epistemological positions and their limitations (ibid: 7). Its aim is to uncover power dynamics and domination, violence and oppression, violations of freedom and marginalization (ibid: 7). Specifically, the concept of critique is strongly intertwined within philosophical thoughts (Gasché 2007: 12). It belongs to the “[…] fundamental capacities of our cultural identity and self-understanding.” (Gasché 2007: 12). However, critique can be seen with different conno-tations. On the one hand, critique and criticism are usually seen as being linked to negative meanings or faultfinding judgment (ibid: 12). On the other hand, it also involves judgement about truth and merit of what is judged and therefore presumes a definite standard of what is essential (ibid: 12). The concept of critique can be seen as a possibility to correct weaknesses

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and improve to a better use of what is judged. The choice of the method frames all subsequent research and the choice of a certain approach always reflects a non-neutrality regarding the research results (Freikamp et al. 2008: 7). This non-neutrality always has to be taken into ac-count and should be reflected as well.

In the end, the possibility to correct weaknesses and to improve is also the aim of this disser-tation, namely, criticizing the traditional transitional justice approach on the basis of a sec-ondary literature analysis to give further suggestions for improvement.

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4. Limitations of Transitional Justice in the case of Egypt

The following chapter will go more into depth into the concept of transitional justice by ex-amining the case of Egypt. The case of Egypt will be used to criticize the dominant transition-al justice paradigm and strike its limitations. To underpin the conceptutransition-al critique three exam-ples will be used to show conventional limitations of transitional justice. First, socio-economic grievances as a factor of conflict in Egypt will be presented and how transitional justice deal with those. Subsequently, the failure of the transitional justice paradigm in re-forming the security sector in Egypt will be discussed. Lastly, the military aid of the US to Egypt and their influence on the securitization of Egypt and the promotion of neoliberal re-forms will be introduced to further discuss the means in which international actors are not addressed by transitional justice.

4.1 Limitation 1: Socio-economic grievances and transitional justice

In the aftermath of the authoritarian rule in Egypt, the need for transitional justice interven-tions has strongly increased (Hamacher and Kirschweng 2015: 1). Nonetheless, there are seri-ous limitations within the transitional justice approach which will be discussed in the follow-ing subchapters. This chapter will examine Egypt’s structural changes, its economic develop-ment, and its relation to socio-economic grievances. First, the Abdel Nasser regime from 1951-1970, the Anwar Sadat regime from 1970 until 1981, and the Hosni Mubarak era from 1981 until 2011 will be presented, with emphasis on their influence on socio-economic griev-ances. Subsequently, the socio-economic grievances in the transitioning phase after the upris-ings and the ouster of former President Hosni Mubarak in 2011, the SCAF regime from 2011 until 2012, Mohamed Morsi from 2012 until 2013, and the current President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi will be presented. It will be criticized and assessed how important socio-economic rights are for peacebuilding and transitional justice. Finally, suggestions on how to include socio-economic rights within transitional justice will be discussed.

To begin with, a major limitation of the transitional justice approach in Egypt is the absence of addressing socio-economic grievances. In terms of clarification, grievance in a wider sense can be defined as “[…] ethnic hatred or resentment over inequality or past abuses […]” (Sri-ram et al. 2010: 16) which is according to Collier and Hoeffler (2002: 11) the standard charac-terization of conflict and rebellion. They differentiate three main types of grievances: “[…] inter-group hatred, political exclusion, and vengeance.” (Collier and Hoeffler 2002: 11). As

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already mentioned above, the major factors that caused the Egyptian revolution on January 25th have been legal and political issues (Khatab 2012: 34). Causes of grievance in Egypt therefore include “[…] police brutality, the state of emergency laws, lack of free elections and freedom of speech, and uncontrollable corruption, as well as economic issues, including high unemployment, food price inflation and low minimum wages.” (Khatab 2012: 34). Collier and Hoeffler (2002: 12) argue that “[t]he 'rage of the poor' at high inequality is indeed probably the single most popular explanation for conflict after that of inter-ethnic hatred […]”. There-fore, they further argue that “[…] grievance due to political repression is postulated to be a function of the general level of political rights, the ethnic composition of the society, and the degree of inequality […]” (Collier and Hoeffler 2002: 13). In the case of Egypt it can be ar-gued that the uprisings in January 2011 have been generated by a grievance rebellion in the matter of political repression and socio-economic inequality. Socio-economic grievances usu-ally refer to inequality, exclusion and marginalization and appear “[…] where culturusu-ally de-fined groups experience multiple forms of exclusion from political, economic, social, security, justice, and cultural realms.” (GSDRC 2014: 11).

At present, transitional justice focuses primarily on political and civil rights. (Hamacher und Kirschweng 2015: 1). Abuses of economic, cultural, and social rights are of secondary im-portance in the scope of traditional transitional justice “[…] even though all human rights and fundamental freedoms are universal, indivisible, and interrelated.” (ibid: 1). However, incor-porating violations of economic and social rights might help to understand causes of past and ongoing conflicts. (Szoke-Burke 2015: 466). Therefore, with regard to Collier and Hoeffler (2002) addressing socio-economic grievances might assist with reducing civil unrest and fu-ture violations. (Szoke-Burke 2015: 466).

Egypt has a long history of socio-economic ups and downs. Especially, under the Gamal Ab-del Nasser Era from 1951-1970 where massive structural changes took place (Nagarajan 2013: 23). During the 1960s and 1970s Egypt followed ambitious state-driven economic strat-egies (Paciello 2011: 2). Nasser’s regime course was mainly characterized by a high industri-alization due to a quick public sector expansion, nationindustri-alization, and expansion of the role of the state economy (Nagarajan 2013: 23). Nasser’s regime was based on the ideology of “Arab Nationalism” and “Arab socialism” (Hibbard and Layton 2010: 198). It’s goal was “[…] a kind of humanitarian socialist order in which all the major means of production were owned or controlled by the state […]” (Waterbury 1983: 17). That also included a ban of all political opponents and “[…] the empowerment of a clandestine security apparatus (the so-called

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mukhabarat, or secret police) to monitor and eliminate any form of dissent.” (Hibbard and Layton 2010: 199). The program of nationalization attempted mainly to end feudalism which was extremely high under the monarchy before. Socio-economic inequality was extremely high during the Nasser regime. 65% of Egypt’s capital was owned by only 5% of the popula-tion (Nagarajan 2013: 23). Moreover, 80% of the cultivable land for agriculture was owned by only 3% of the population (Nagarajan 2013: 23). Nasser aimed to break this power imbal-ance (ibid: 23). Thus the “[…] surplus lands were taken over by the government with fixed compensation paid to the landowners.” (Nagarajan 2013: 23). That led to an increasing in agricultural production and rural income (Marshall 2013: 1). Furthermore, more nationaliza-tion took place. In 1957, under the supervision of the Economic Organizanationaliza-tion, all foreign trade agencies, insurance companies and, commercial banks were nationalized (Nagarajan 2013: 24). The aim of Nasser was to break the power of domestic and foreign oligarchs and to “[…] restructure Egyptian institutions to serve the interests of the many rather than the few.” (Nagarajan 2013: 24). With regard to Kassem (2004) Hibbard and Layton (2010: 199) argue that the Egyptian population was willing to accept Nasser’s regime and its restrictions in po-litical freedom in exchange for the promise of a stronger nation and higher living standards. Nonetheless, within a few years Egypt found itself in an economic crisis (Nagarajan 2013: 24). The state-led development has not only brought economic growth but also a high level of financial instability (Hibbard and Layton 2010: 200). To be more specific, “[w]hile consump-tion continued to rise, domestic savings and investment failed to materialize, leading to a huge fiscal gap.” Therefore, Egypt was highly dependent on massive loans (Nagarajan 2013: 24). In the end, Nasser’s Arab Socialism is now rather associated with “[…] demagoguery, mili-tary dictatorship, and economic failure […]” (Ashour 2010: 1).

After Nasser’s death in 1970, Anwar Sadat led Egypt from 1970 until 1981 and followed a specific political program of „de-nasserisation“ (Marshall 2013: 1). Therefore he wanted to return the land which was nationalized during the Nasser era to the large landowners “[…] by employing an 'open door' market-oriented program called infitah.” (Marshall 2013: 1). More-over, the access of the newly available land and their profits was preferably given to friends of the regime (Hibbard and Layton 2010: 200). Furthermore, the tourism and import sectors were mainly controlled by former military and security officials (ibid: 200). Or as Hibbard and Layton put it: “[t]he state, in short, determined the beneficiaries of the new economic pol-icies.” (ibid: 200). The infitah or “opening” (Hibbard and Layton 2010: 200) was an alterna-tive to Nasser’s socialism and was a process of liberalization and import of Western capital

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(Marshall 2013: 1). Tourism, oil exports, the Suez Canal, and exported labor and their remit-tances back to Egypt represented nearly a third of Egypt’s foreign income in 1974 and up to 75 percent in 1980 (Marshall 2013: 1). As a result, a new commercial elite emerged with strong ties to the state. However, economic inequality between the rich and the poor in Egypt increased due to “Sadat’s laissez-faire economic policies” (Hibbard and Layton 2010: 200) which led to a tremendous rise in real estate speculations. Thus, socio-economic grievances grew and workers, academics, and state bureaucrats formed “[…] strikes and "popular unrest" occurring throughout the mid-1970s, with a major transport worker strike in 1976 and large bread riots in 1977.” (Marshall 2013: 1). The main concern was about the decline in living standards for most Egyptians and the increasing gap between rich and poor (Hibbard and Lay-ton 2010: 200). Sadat’s response to end the food riots and unrest was characterized by sending military to oppress the protests (Marshall 2013: 1).

In 1981, Hosni Mubarak became the leader of Egypt continuing Sadat’s liberalization policies of the economy and pursuing the ties between the economic elites and the military (Hibbard and Layton 2010: 201). Moreover, the US had a major influence on the neo-liberalization in Egypt and the associated securitization which will be discussed later on. The mid-eighties were especially characterized by fiscal instability and a low economy (Paciello 2011: 2). In the early 1990’s, the focus lay on the expansion of the security services and a strong priority on development rather than democratic reform (Hibbard and Layton 2010: 202). Especially, the end of the oil boom in the MENA region (1971-1981) led to extreme debts and inflation in Egypt in 1991 (Paciello 2011: 2-3). With regard to Joya (2011: 370), Marshall (2013: 1) ar-gues that especially under the Mubarak ruling, massive neoliberal reforms took place. They appeared in 1991 with the “[…] Economic Restructuring and Adjustment Program with the IMF, demanding liberalization of trade and prices, privatization, and labour [sic!] 'flexibility,' as well as the removal of several social safety net measures.” (Marshall 2013: 1). Mubarak continued Sadat’s regime deepening the economic reforms (ibid: 1). In the mid-nineties, the economy in Egypt grew once more and public deficits and inflation decreased (Paciello 2011: 3). Over the past decades, Egypt has experienced a positive macroeconomic development; however, the situation with regard to employment especially among young and educated peo-ple has worsened tremendously (ibid: 3). To be more specific, a rapidly growing population combined with an performing economy led to a high level of unemployment and under-employment (Hibbard and Layton 2010: 202). Moreover, Egypt suffered and is still suffering from a high structural fragility and is highly dependent on external financial aid which makes their economic performances extremely vulnerable to external shocks (Paciello 2011: 3).

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sides, market-oriented reforms by the government did not achieve their goal of creating new job opportunities for young educated Egyptians as was planned and instead led more and more to an employment crisis (ibid: 3-4). The labor market policies by the Mubarak regime only created temporary jobs which were not directed at the young educated population, and the use of microcredit loans as a tool to create jobs for women and the educated youth has generally failed (Paciello 2011: 4). Hibbard and Layton (2010: 202) argue that “[…] these structural adjustment policies fostered a culture of crony capitalism whereby business elites with ties to the regime systematically plundered the nation's resources for private gain.” In total, Egypt has suffered a steady decline in living standards over the past decades (Paciello 2011: 4). To be more specific, most of the welfare system in Egypt has been shrinking as a consequence of structural adjustment reforms commanded by the IMF and the World Bank (ibid: 4). In the 1990’s, the IMF promoted further privatization of public sector companies as well as reducing government social spending (Hibbard and Layton 2010: 202). Paciello (2011: 4) argues that the welfare system was going through a serious crisis which worsened the quality and the access of education, healthcare and housing in Egypt. In addition, salaries stagnated, inflation grew and in particular food prices increased tremendously (Paciello 2011: 4). Moreover, during the SCAF ruling “[…] a wave of labor protests and strikes spread throughout the country.” (Abul-Magd 2012: 1). The striking workers were being accused of slowing down the production and harming national economy. However, the military was ma-jorly afraid that the protests were threatening the military’s economic interests (ibid: 1). The protests were mainly against the ongoing corruption and mismanagement, poor working con-ditions and the increasing militarization of jobs. In particular, the petroleum sector and Suez Canal workers organized big protests. Salaries have been extremely disparate since workers earned very little whereas generals at the top earned thousands of pounds (ibid: 1).

In the end, Bayoumni (2017b: 1) emphasizes that Egyptians were not angry about their coun-try getting poorer and poorer, but rather at seeing a growing economy that leaves millions of Egyptians behind. Thus, the economic developments underpin more and more feelings of re-sent and dissatisfaction (ibid 2017b: 1).

In total, poverty in Egypt has increased continuously until 2011. According to the Center for Economic and Social Rights (CESR), poverty in Egypt has increased continuously between 1995/96 and 2010/11 (CESR and ECESR 2013: 2). That means, 16.7% of the population (9.9 million people) in 1996, increasing to 25.2% (21 million people) in 2011 fell below the na-tional poverty line (CESR and ECESR 2013: 2). Furthermore, in 2011 another 23.7% (18.9 million people) were just above the poverty line and at risk of falling into poverty (ibid: 2).

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Graph 1: National Poverty, 1995/6 – 2010/111

Having these figures and facts in mind, it is important to analyze the underlying socio-economic problems in Egypt with an understanding of the political context the country is in, in order to understand how they emerged and transformed over time. During the last decades the socio-economic conditions in Egypt have continuously declined and were strongly inter-twined with an increase in authoritarianism, limitations of basic freedoms, and repression. (Paciello 2011: 4). Hence, this combination and the lack of opportunities for political expres-sion led to an exponential growth of grievances in Egypt (ibid: 4). In total, the authoritarian regime in Egypt has influenced the socio-economic development in a negative way prohibit-ing the development of a well-balanced and inclusive economy (Paciello: 2011: 5). Reforms that were meant to liberalize the economy became majorly a means to strengthen the regime’s authority and control over the population (ibid: 5). In the end, these reforms represented an extreme enrichment for members of the armed force as well as government supporting elites (ibid: 5). The increasing privatization of state-run industries is one major example to what extent these reforms benefited people who held close ties to the political elites (ibid: 5). Paci-ello (2011: 5) argues that “[…] in exchange for political backing and acquiescence, the entre-preneurs who held close ties with the regimes came to benefit enormously from the economic reforms and privatizations implemented over the past twenty years.” Long-term employment

1_{Graph 1: CESR and ECESR. 2013. Egypt Factsheet. Center for Economic and Social Rights 13: 2. [Online]}

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and sustainable growth have not yet been possible due to the authoritarian nature of the re-gime in Egypt and their influence on the private sector (Paciello 2011: 5).

One of the main drivers for the uprisings in Egypt have been “[s]ocio-economic grievances, outrage at widespread corruption, and the quest for freedom and human dignity […]” (Hamacher and Kirschweng 2015: 1). Also the Arab Spring had various impacts on the econ-omy in Egypt and consequently on the socio-economic grievances. In particular, economic sectors such as tourism and the textile industry have been extremely affected by the massive protest in Egypt which led to a “post-revolutionary economic crisis” (Paciello 2011: 5) which included increasing layoffs and growing unemployment. According to the World Bank (2016: 1) the unemployment increased to a maximum of 13.21% in 2013 and 13.17% in 2014.

Graph 2: Unemployment, total (% of total labor force) 2

However, the transition government in Egypt responded to the increasing socio-economic grievances with the same measures used under the Mubarak regime (Paciello 2011: 5). A

2_{Graph 2: World Bank. 2016. Unemployment, total (% of total labor force) (modeled ILO estimate). [Online]}

Available at: http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SL.UEM.TOTL.ZS?end=2016&locations=EG&page=6&star t=1991&view=chart

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clear long-term strategy concerning development was missing and therefore could not address present as well as past socio-economic grievances. Nonetheless, socio-economic grievances must be addressed by transitional justice measures. As already mentioned, they play a major role in conflicts or atrocity (Szoke-Burke 2015: 466) and especially in Egypt socio-economic concerns such as corruption, poverty, and unemployment played a major role in the uprisings in 2011 (ibid: 470). Addressing these socio-economic grievances could therefore help pre-cluding a recurrence of conflict (Szoke-Burke 2015: 466). Ignoring economic and social rights violations risks leaving important reasons for past violence unaddressed (ibid: 470). Moreover, a failure to address economic and social rights might actually threaten peace and stability by intensifying existing socio-economic injustices and grievances (ibid: 470).

It can be argued that the traditional transitional justice approach is not sufficient in addressing comprehensive justice calls in Egypt. (Hamacher and Kirschweng 2015: 1). According to Hamacher and Kirschweng (2015: 1) a more holistic approach is needed to sufficiently ad-dress the challenges existing in Egypt. That is why, the traditional transitional justice ap-proach need to be more interdisciplinary in its format (ibid: 1). Following Hamacher and Kirschweng's (2015: 1) argumentation, issues such as “[…] the promotion of economic growth and human development, access to basic goods and services, the fight against corrup-tion, and the recovery of stolen assets [as well as] […] the commemoration of past abuses and the reform of history curricula for educational programs […]” (ibid: 1) have to be included. A more comprehensive approach of transitional justice is needed to get to social and structural change and to achieve a stage of reconciliation (ibid: 1). Hamacher and Kirschweng (2015: 2) argue that the field of traditional transitional justice and development has to be more connect-ed. Transitional justice should therefore also address factors within the development sector. They mention patterns such as “[…] inequality, structural violence, and socio-economic dis-crimination and marginalization […]” (Hamacher and Kirschweng 2015: 2) since these fac-tors increase the likelihood of reoccurrence of violence and conflict.

Szoke-Burke (2015) presents a few ways of including economic and social rights within the transitional justice approach to address socio-economic grievances. To begin with, he presents truth finding as one means of traditional transitional justice. He argues with regard to De Greiff (2009: 35-36) that truth commissions often call for a clear examination of structural and systemic causes of atrocity and could therefore take into account the economic and social situation. Moreover, broader issues such as social marginalization and development have been incorporated by truth commissions. (Szoke-Burke 2015: 478). Another point where truth