1,720,976 research outputs found
What we talk about when we talk about transitional justice—and what we don’t
No full textThis chapter reprises and re-evaluates the origin story of transitional justice. It discusses the play of the post-atrocity “way of worldmaking” gifted by Nuremberg (crimes against humanity must be punished), against that bestowed by the end of the Cold War (violent authoritarians must be pacified rather than punished). It concentrates attention on a set of late-Cold War political conditions largely ignored by the field to date. It spotlights the Reagan Doctrine, an important artifact of late US Cold War foreign policy, in order to show how the political allegiances and norms it generated shaped early debates and cases in transitional justice. The chapter draws on examples from a range of constitutive events and artifacts in the emergence of the field, namely, founding debates and official documents which preceded and shaped important early cases in Chile (1990) and South Africa (1996) respectively. This early context—history, politics, and debates—provides a rich snapshot of a new way of worldmaking at the moment of its inception. This chapter argues that this history gifted transitional justice with a distinctive, modular, way of addressing atrocity that was designed to transcend political differences. It argues further that this modular way of knowing went on to indelibly imprint the field, and facilitated the proliferation of transitional justice far beyond the contexts it was originally set up to address. Finally, the chapter argues that the features of transitional justice that have made it so successful have also led to an over-extension of the field and an exhaustion of its meaning
Dispossession and Canadian Land Claims: Genocidal Implications of the Innu Nation Land Claim
No full textWas there transitional justice in the medieval world?
No full textThere exists a large and ever-growing eld of scholarship on conflict resolution and peace-making in
the Middle Ages, yet no historian has interpreted such issues through the theory of transitional justice.
As the medieval period lacks codification of human rights and international law, it is easy to appreciate
why this has been the case. By taking a broader interpretation of law and justice, this chapter attests
not simply that the aims and methods of transitional justice existed in the medieval period but it
explores how they were adapted to societies very different from our own, and to what success. The
widely understood concepts of Christianity and honor created pervasive notions of just behaviors, and
in turn stimulated the use of methods such as apology, memorialization, reparation, and arbitration in
response to violations. Though “true democracy” was never the goal, these approaches encouraged
inclusion and collaboration between former enemies, precipitating peac
Interface: the correspondence of Pierre Elliott Trudeau and H. Marshall McLuhan (1968-1980)
No full textThis study explores the relationship of Canadian prime minister Pierre Elliott Trudeau and seminal media theorist Marshall McLuhan through an examination of their correspondence, which has never been studied as a discrete entity. The two men were at the forefront of discussions about critical issues of globalization, especially the political uses of media, at a time when globalization was not yet a recognized keyword in the literature. All this is reflected in the correspondence. There were almost 100 items, housed at Library and Archives Canada (LAC) in Ottawa, many of which have appeared in pieces in books written about either man; many of McLuhan’s are in a 1987 collection of his letters, published by Oxford University Press. Mainly, I searched through primary and secondary documents, though I did contact several of McLuhan’s children, spoke with a few people who knew either or both men and paid a visit to LAC. The letters form the second chapter of this dissertation, an intersection between Part I, which introduces them and my interest in them, and Part III, in which I take readers through the correspondence. Part IV is primarily a description of the personal journey through issues of globalization, multiculturalism and borders that ties it all together. The relationship between these two intellects was warm and nuanced. Trudeau “spoke of McLuhan with great reverence” and, for McLuhan, Trudeau was “an image of the age, a phenomenon of media, a rare combination of training, practice, intuition, vision; a figure of undoubted fascination, a charismatic who manifested the Canadian dualities and ambiguities.” Both were experts at media manipulation and recognized that in the other. McLuhan was teaching the world about the global village at the same time as Trudeau was helping Canada find its place and meanings in it. Even a cursory glance at the news today shows how much their work is still relevant and needs to be built upon.Ph.D.Includes bibliographical referencesby Elaine B. Kah
Crossing the river of law: the women’s participation in peacebuilding at the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC)
No full textThis thesis focuses on the empowerment of women in the Cambodian legal system as participants in the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC) and as advocates of gender and human rights. These preliminary findings will lay the foundation for a larger dissertation, which will further explore the role of women as peace builders in post-conflict societies. The research highlights local applications of gender and human rights through the participation of female civil parties in a court of international standards (ECCC). International human rights conventions have been embedded in the Khmer Rouge Tribunal at the ECCC, allowing victims of Democratic Kampuchea (women in particular) to exercise their full legal rights on an equal basis before the law. For the first time, an ad-hoc court of this nature has been established to seek truth, justice, and reparations for crimes against humanity, including torture, starvation, forced marriage, mass killing, genocide, war crimes, and other crimes committed by former Democratic Kampuchea leaders from 1975 to 1979. Through in-depth interviews, transcripts of court hearings, and participant observations, my research has shown that the ECCC has been instrumental in localizing the global concept of human rights within the Cambodian court system. In the process, female civil parties have fully exercised their legal rights as participants in the court proceedings, providing a comprehensive historical account that has been crucial to the prosecutions of Cases 001 and 002. Testifying before the court enabled these women to heal their wounds and forgive the accused, both of which are prerequisites for the achievement of peace and reconciliation within the country. Cambodia women have been agents of peace since the end of the conflict in 1979; through their participation in the ECCC, they have expanded their influence by playing a pivotal role in ending past impunity and ensuring that justice is served on behalf of the victims and survivors of Democratic Kampuchea. Their efforts in this regard have contributed significantly to sustainable peace in Cambodia.M.S.Includes bibliographical referencesby Samphoas Hu
Critical Genocide Studies
Get PDFOver the last two decades, the interdisciplinary field of genocide studies has dramatically expanded and matured. No longer in the shadow of Holocaust studies, it is now the primary subject of journals, textbooks, encyclopedias, readers, handbooks, special journal issues, bibliographies, workshops, semi- nars, conference, Web sites, research centers, government agencies, non-governmental organizations, international organizations, and a unit at the United Nations. If not yet fully theorized, the discipline is characterized by a number of debates and approaches. As the outlines of the field emerge more clearly, the time is right to engage in critical reflections about the state of the field, or what might be called critical genocide studies. The goal is not to be critical in a negative sense but to consider, even as a canon becomes ensconced, what is said and unsaid, who has voice and who is silenced, and how such questions may be linked to issues of power and knowledge. It is, in other words, a call for critical thinking about the field of genocide studies itself, exploring our presuppositions, decentering our biases, and throwing light on blind spots in the hope of further enriching this dynamic field
Annihilating difference: the anthropology of genocide
No full textGenocide is one of the most pressing issues that confronts us today. Its death toll is staggering: over one hundred million dead. Because of their intimate experience in the communities where genocide takes place, anthropologists are uniquely positioned to explain how and why this mass annihilation occurs and the types of devastation genocide causes. This ground breaking book, the first collection of original essays on genocide to be published in anthropology, explores a wide range of cases, including Nazi Germany, Cambodia, Guatemala, Rwanda, and Bosnia
Justice and Time at the Khmer Rouge Tribunal: In Memory of Vann Nath, Painter and S-21 Survivor
Get PDFThis essay explores the interrelationship of justice and time at the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia [ECCC hyperlink: http://www.eccc.gov.kh/en] (ECCC, or “Khmer Rouge Tribunal”). In doing so, it follows the trial participation of the late Vann Nath, a survivor of S-21, a torture and detention center operated by the Khmer Rouge. From April 15, 1975 to January 6, 1979, this Maoist-inspired group of revolutionary implemented policies resulting in the death of up to two million of Cambodia’s eight million inhabitants, almost a quarter of the population. This essay argue that, even as they seek to help post-conflict societies like Cambodia “move forward through justice” (as the ECCC slogan goes), transitional justice mechanisms like the ECCC are premised on a set of temporal assumptions that are part of a larger transitional justice imaginary. Scholars and practitioners need to attend to such assumptions as well as the sorts of “vernacular time,” or local conceptions of temporality that also mediate the understanding and responses of people like Vann Nath
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