You are holding in your hands, dear reader, an absolutely fascinating piece of work – what I believe to be a true milestone in legal scholarship of transitional justice, as well as in our understanding of Burundi. It is very well researched and written, complete and nuanced, thoughtful and creative. It is a true joy in every respect of the work, a brilliant piece of legal scholarship – without doubt the best of its kind I have ever seen.

The case of Burundi is largely unexplored in the international academic and legal scholarship. This is a pity, for Burundi represents a fascinating case of a successful negotiated transition to peace, in which the international community played a major and positive role. There are not many cases where international peacemaking and peacekeeping can be clearly said to be a success, but Burundi is one, and it deserves to be known better for that reason alone.

But this book is important – and brilliant – for far more than merely being about an understudied and interesting case. It truly sets the standard in what to expect of the contemporary legal analysis of transitional justice.

For starters, this work contains a gorgeous historical analysis. This is done far too little. Most studies of transitional justice may give us a short overview of the nature of the crisis, and then they focus solely on contemporary legal and political issues. It is true that in the contemporary period the tools of transitional justice are far more sophisticated and salient than they were in the past (Burundi, as documented by Vandeginste, is no exception to this). But it is equally true that what preceded the contemporary period is not gone, forgotten, or irrelevant. Vandeginste's detailed study of Burundi's post-Independence period shows how transitional law was always a political device for power holders; it also shows the complacency and inefficacy of the international community to make any difference in this sorry situation. Nobody in Burundi has forgotten this – it is only the outsiders for whom history only starts with their arrival. This lengthy section in the book is a model of detail, nuance, and insight, a truly fascinating historical lesson in judicial real-politik.

In so doing, Vandeginste does what he calls, following McEvoy, “thick” legal research, i.e. a combination of legal empirical and doctrinal research with sociopolitical and historical knowledge.