The present essay explains law as a way of mastering the past in case of large-scale human rights violations. On the example of the theory and practice of transitional justice, such key strategies for mastering the past as truth, justice and reconciliation are viewed as forms of mutual recognition. The very phenomenon of transitional justice is conceived as a ‘border situation’, which makes it possible to clarify the true nature of law as an antithesis to violence and its fundamental connection (...) with the peace. (shrink)