When societies experience war, occupation or political upheaval, people do not only carry physical scars — they carry memories, interpretations and moral questions that do not align neatly with one another. In these moments, talking about the past becomes both essential and incredibly difficult.
Professionals working in peacebuilding, governance, civil society and international cooperation often face the same challenge: How do you create space for different experiences of the same events, while still holding on to justice, responsibility and democratic principles?
This question sits at the heart of transitional justice — the long-term process through which societies deal with the consequences of violence and violations of international law and human rights.
A justice and memory collision
In the context of Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine, the usual legal frameworks for justice are strained or simply not functioning. Yet people still want to talk about what happened, about the choices that were made and about the consequences that are carried by all that are involved. In these moments it is on the one hand possible to take responsibility for the situation where the rule of law has collapsed and other hand more difficult than ever to take that responsibility because the harm that was inflicted on others is so grave.
At the same time, individuals carry very different memories of the same events. In the case of the Ukraine war narratives around the Maidan protests, the annexation of Crimea or the early years of the war are interpreted vastly different depending on where someone lived, what they experienced and which information they had access to.
These differences become part of the social fabric. Narratives become hardened, more accusing in tone and close-off for accounts that view the situation differently. The wounds inflicted by armed conflicted are met with scepsis from people from the ‘other side’ which leads to divisions that lasts for generations.
Can dialogue be used as a tool for justice?
Moral deliberations is piloted in one such transnational justice project as a structured way to examine historic events with a transnational group of women from Ukraine (including temporarily occupied territories), Russia and other European countries. In the deliberation participants explored questions like what principles were at stake? What options did people realistically have? How do personal memories interact with political narratives? What does justice mean when the law is absent? It was shown that the method helps participants stay grounded in democratic principles while acknowledging the emotional and political weight of their experiences.
For organisations working in governance, peacebuilding, civil society or international cooperation, this research highlights an important insight: acknowledge conflicting memories without relativising wrongdoing. Moral deliberation offers one such tool. It helps people navigate the grey zones of memory, responsibility and justice — especially when the law cannot yet provide answers.