Formal but Local Transitional Justice: Memorialization of the Missing by Local Government in Nepal

Abstract This article explores how the families of the disappeared in Nepal, in the absence of any substantive state-led transitional justice process, have mobilized to created victim groups to drive local political and social engagements with violations of the decade long internal conflict. Victims’ groups have informally memorialized their missing relatives and ultimately successfully advocated with local government to advance local memorialization through official processes. Victim-led memory practices have had an impact on local government policy, and these serve to enhance the role of victim groups as agents of social change. Using case studies from two local authorities as examples, we seek to highlight how localized memory practices empower and mobilize victims, advancing their role as political and social actors in processes of social change and blurring the conceptual division between state and community-led process. This article seeks to challenge the longstanding conflation of ‘local’ and ‘informal’ (meaning initiated and led by non-state actors) to describe the transitional justice process, by showing how when led by local authorities, this process can both empower victims and challenge impunity at the federal level.