Restorative justice theory is an attempt to describe a criminal justice process based on a model of crime as injury to victims, offenders, and communities. Such a model proposes particular roles for the community and government in crime prevention and response. It also offers a means of recognizing and balancing what may otherwise appear to be competing interests among the victim, offender, community, and government. The past 50 years have seen growing international concern for human rights, reflected in the development of human rights law and in a range of international standards and norms that guide criminal justice policymakers and practitioners. These standards and norms reflect various criminal justice theories that have risen and fallen over the past half-century. Restorative justice theory offers a conceptual framework that may reconcile apparently inconsistent criminal justice norms and standards. The apparent inconsistencies may reflect a paradigm shift from a legalistic understanding of crime to a model that recognizes the injuries to victims and communities. A review of the documents included in the Compendium of United Nations Standards and Norms in Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice finds significant support for restorative justice theory. The documents show that states must balance the interests of victims, offenders, and the public; victims and offenders must have access to formal and informal dispute-resolution mechanisms; crime prevention requires comprehensive action by government and the community; government's role in responding to particular crimes should be to provide impartial, formal judicial mechanisms for victims and offenders; and the community's role must be to help victims and offenders reintegrate. 13 references and appended annotations of the 5 human rights documents reviewed for this paper