The pursuit of justice in the aftermath of mass atrocity and gross human rights violations has become a norm in a globalised post-Cold War world. It rests on the premise that states and societies ought to engage with the difficult past in order to transition from conflict to peace. But, the limitations of transitional justice practices, such as war crimes trials, truth commissions, reparations and others, are now evident. Instead of promoting peace and reconciliation, they have often had the opposite impact: they have further divided communities, distorted the truth about suffering, and traumatised rather than dignified the victims. With a comparative focus on transitional justice practices in Europe and elsewhere, this course examines how the pursuit of post-conflict justice is theorised and tackles the puzzle of its unintended effects in societies transitioning from conflict and repressive rule. Theoretically informed and empirically grounded, the course adopts a multidisciplinary approach to address the question how we know and study the effects of transitional justice. It reflects critically on theorising, methods, and data in transitional justice research, and discusses implications for policy making. A range of cases of application of transitional justice and reconciliation is examined from the European context and beyond.