Elin Skaar
Current projects
Completed projects
Beyond Words: Latin American Truth Commissions' Recommendations
Reconceptualising Transitional Justice: The Latin American Experience
After Violence: Transitional Justice, Peace, and Democracy
Transitional Justice, Violence and Reconciliation
Accountability functions of courts
Courts in transition
The political role of courts in South Africa
Aid to judicial reform
Good governance in Angola: The role of the courts
Democratization and the Judiciary
Evaluation of Ireland Aid's human rights and democratisation scheme
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Journal Articles
Books and Anthologies
CMI Reports
CMI Working Papers
CMI Briefs
Other External Publications
Conference Papers/ Presentations
Newspaper Op-Eds
Political scientist exploring intersections between law and politics in Latin America
Elin Skaar is senior researcher at the CMI. Her research focuses mainly on countries that through processes of democratisation deal with human rights violations, transitional justice, strengthening and reforming their courts, and development issues more generally. Main empirical focus: Latin America (Chile, Argentina, Uruguay) and Southern Africa (Namibia, Angola, Mozambique).
Skaar has worked on human rights and transitional justice issues since the early 1990s. She is coordinator for the research Cluster on Rights and Legal Institutions and leads CMI's research on Transitional Justice, which focuses on both the drivers and impact of transitional justice processes. She has headed several large comparative interdisciplinary research projects on this topic in recent years, including "Drivers of Justice", "Reconceptualising Justice: The Latin American Experience" and "Beyond Words: Implementing Latin American Truth Commission Recommendations."
Skaar has also provided Latin American perspectives to the comparative research programme on Everyday Manoeuvres: Military - Civilian Relations in Latin America and the Middle East.
Currently, Skaar heads a new comparative interdisciplinary research project entitled "Women on the Bench", which examines the role of women judges in fragile states.
She has done programme work for the UNDP and served as a consultant for NORAD, the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Ireland Aid, and Nordic Consulting Group A/S.
Skaar is former member of the Board of Directors at the Centre for applied research at the Norwegian School of Economics (2007-15) and current member of the editorial board for Human Rights Review. She sits on the steering committee for the Center on Law and Social Transformation, which is a joint initiative by CMI and the University of Bergen, Department of Comparative Politics.
Her two most recent books are with Routledge in their Transitional Justice Series: After Violence: Transitional Justice, Peace, and Democracy (co-authored with Camila Gianella Malca and Trine Eide, 2015) and Transitional Justice in Latin America: The Uneven Road from Impunity toward Accountability (co-edited with Jemima García-Godos and Cath Collins) (2016). Two new books are in the pipleline, both based on a recent research project on Latin American truth commissions: Beyond Words. Implementing Latin American Truth Commission Recommendations. Vols. I and II (co-written/co-edited with Eric Wiebelhaus-Brahm and Jemima García-Godos).