Vanessa Walker
- Published in print:
- 2020
- Published Online:
- May 2021
- ISBN:
- 9781501713682
- eISBN:
- 9781501752698
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Cornell University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7591/cornell/9781501713682.003.0003
- Subject:
- History, American History: 19th Century
This chapter analyzes the early development of the Carter administration's human rights agenda, built in tandem with a new approach to U.S.–Latin American relations during its first year in office. ...
More
This chapter analyzes the early development of the Carter administration's human rights agenda, built in tandem with a new approach to U.S.–Latin American relations during its first year in office. From the outset, the Carter administration envisioned a human rights policy that would simultaneously mitigate human rights violations abroad, build U.S. credibility and stature in the international sphere by reasserting a moral and ideological pole of attraction, and signify a move away from the excessive secrecy and power of the Cold War presidency at home. Although Carter largely shared the premises of the Movement's vision, differences over the implementation and signifiers of this policy in high-level diplomacy created rifts between like-minded advocates and policy makers. Carter found himself grappling with the legacies of both U.S. intervention in the region and also congressional and public distrust stemming from past excesses of the Cold War presidency. The administration's options in implementing its policy were bounded by both past regional relations and human rights advocacy itself.Less
This chapter analyzes the early development of the Carter administration's human rights agenda, built in tandem with a new approach to U.S.–Latin American relations during its first year in office. From the outset, the Carter administration envisioned a human rights policy that would simultaneously mitigate human rights violations abroad, build U.S. credibility and stature in the international sphere by reasserting a moral and ideological pole of attraction, and signify a move away from the excessive secrecy and power of the Cold War presidency at home. Although Carter largely shared the premises of the Movement's vision, differences over the implementation and signifiers of this policy in high-level diplomacy created rifts between like-minded advocates and policy makers. Carter found himself grappling with the legacies of both U.S. intervention in the region and also congressional and public distrust stemming from past excesses of the Cold War presidency. The administration's options in implementing its policy were bounded by both past regional relations and human rights advocacy itself.
Vanessa Walker
- Published in print:
- 2020
- Published Online:
- May 2021
- ISBN:
- 9781501713682
- eISBN:
- 9781501752698
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Cornell University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7591/cornell/9781501713682.003.0001
- Subject:
- History, American History: 19th Century
This introductory chapter provides an overview of how different groups deployed human rights language to reform domestic and international power, which reveals the multiple and often conflicting ...
More
This introductory chapter provides an overview of how different groups deployed human rights language to reform domestic and international power, which reveals the multiple and often conflicting purposes of U.S. human rights policy. U.S. Cold War policies were deeply implicated in the human rights violations perpetrated by many of Latin America's governments. This entanglement of U.S. policy and human rights abuses make the Western Hemisphere a critical site for the development and implementation of U.S. human rights diplomacy during the Ford, Carter, and Reagan presidencies. New human rights advocacy targeting Latin America in the 1970s not only sought to mitigate foreign abuses but also challenge Cold War relationships between the United States and repressive right-wing regimes, contesting presidential prerogatives over the very mechanisms of U.S. foreign policy making. Latin America is essential for revealing the uniquely anti-interventionist and self-critical elements of human rights policy that took shape at this time; it was at the core — not the periphery — of both U.S. domestic policy debates and the new international policies that reached far beyond the hemisphere.Less
This introductory chapter provides an overview of how different groups deployed human rights language to reform domestic and international power, which reveals the multiple and often conflicting purposes of U.S. human rights policy. U.S. Cold War policies were deeply implicated in the human rights violations perpetrated by many of Latin America's governments. This entanglement of U.S. policy and human rights abuses make the Western Hemisphere a critical site for the development and implementation of U.S. human rights diplomacy during the Ford, Carter, and Reagan presidencies. New human rights advocacy targeting Latin America in the 1970s not only sought to mitigate foreign abuses but also challenge Cold War relationships between the United States and repressive right-wing regimes, contesting presidential prerogatives over the very mechanisms of U.S. foreign policy making. Latin America is essential for revealing the uniquely anti-interventionist and self-critical elements of human rights policy that took shape at this time; it was at the core — not the periphery — of both U.S. domestic policy debates and the new international policies that reached far beyond the hemisphere.
Arzoo Osanloo
- Published in print:
- 2020
- Published Online:
- January 2021
- ISBN:
- 9780691172040
- eISBN:
- 9780691201535
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Princeton University Press
- DOI:
- 10.23943/princeton/9780691172040.003.0009
- Subject:
- Society and Culture, Middle Eastern Studies
This chapter reflects on the work of criminal defense lawyers. Although engaged in forgiveness work, particularly post-sentencing, lawyers occupy a distinct position in relation to other actors. ...
More
This chapter reflects on the work of criminal defense lawyers. Although engaged in forgiveness work, particularly post-sentencing, lawyers occupy a distinct position in relation to other actors. Lawyers who take up qisas cases, like anti-death penalty lawyers elsewhere, often possess a deeper agenda and, as cause lawyers, go beyond ethical self-fashioning or culture-building. They seek to enforce the rule of law. They work with and within the laws, but their ethically grounded advocacy risks placing them in the precarious space of apparent opposition to the system itself. The position of defense lawyers, whose rights-based advocacy sits in uncomfortable opposition to the gift economy of forgiveness, ultimately highlights the tensions of human rights advocacy in this climate.Less
This chapter reflects on the work of criminal defense lawyers. Although engaged in forgiveness work, particularly post-sentencing, lawyers occupy a distinct position in relation to other actors. Lawyers who take up qisas cases, like anti-death penalty lawyers elsewhere, often possess a deeper agenda and, as cause lawyers, go beyond ethical self-fashioning or culture-building. They seek to enforce the rule of law. They work with and within the laws, but their ethically grounded advocacy risks placing them in the precarious space of apparent opposition to the system itself. The position of defense lawyers, whose rights-based advocacy sits in uncomfortable opposition to the gift economy of forgiveness, ultimately highlights the tensions of human rights advocacy in this climate.
Vanessa Walker
- Published in print:
- 2020
- Published Online:
- May 2021
- ISBN:
- 9781501713682
- eISBN:
- 9781501752698
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Cornell University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7591/cornell/9781501713682.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, American History: 19th Century
This book explores the relationship between policy makers and nongovernment advocates in Latin America and the U.S. government in order to explain the rise of anti-interventionist human rights ...
More
This book explores the relationship between policy makers and nongovernment advocates in Latin America and the U.S. government in order to explain the rise of anti-interventionist human rights policies uniquely critical of U.S. power during the Cold War. The book shows that the new human rights policies of the 1970s were based on a complex dynamic of domestic and foreign considerations that was rife with tensions between the seats of power in the United States and Latin America, and the growing activist movement that sought to reform them. By addressing the development of U.S. diplomacy and politics alongside that of activist networks, especially in Chile and Argentina, the book shows that Latin America was central to the policy assumptions that shaped the Carter administration's foreign policy agenda. The coup that ousted the socialist president of Chile, Salvador Allende, sparked new human rights advocacy as a direct result of U.S. policies that supported authoritarian regimes in the name of Cold War security interests. From 1973 onward, the attention of Washington and capitals around the globe turned to Latin America as the testing ground for the viability of a new paradigm for U.S. power. This approach, oriented around human rights, required collaboration among activists and state officials in diverse places. The book tells the complicated story of the potentials and limits of partnership between government and nongovernment actors. Analyzing how different groups deployed human rights language to reform domestic and international power, it explores the multiple and often conflicting purposes of U.S. human rights policy.Less
This book explores the relationship between policy makers and nongovernment advocates in Latin America and the U.S. government in order to explain the rise of anti-interventionist human rights policies uniquely critical of U.S. power during the Cold War. The book shows that the new human rights policies of the 1970s were based on a complex dynamic of domestic and foreign considerations that was rife with tensions between the seats of power in the United States and Latin America, and the growing activist movement that sought to reform them. By addressing the development of U.S. diplomacy and politics alongside that of activist networks, especially in Chile and Argentina, the book shows that Latin America was central to the policy assumptions that shaped the Carter administration's foreign policy agenda. The coup that ousted the socialist president of Chile, Salvador Allende, sparked new human rights advocacy as a direct result of U.S. policies that supported authoritarian regimes in the name of Cold War security interests. From 1973 onward, the attention of Washington and capitals around the globe turned to Latin America as the testing ground for the viability of a new paradigm for U.S. power. This approach, oriented around human rights, required collaboration among activists and state officials in diverse places. The book tells the complicated story of the potentials and limits of partnership between government and nongovernment actors. Analyzing how different groups deployed human rights language to reform domestic and international power, it explores the multiple and often conflicting purposes of U.S. human rights policy.
Gráinne de Búrca
- Published in print:
- 2022
- Published Online:
- May 2022
- ISBN:
- 9780192866578
- eISBN:
- 9780191957444
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780192866578.003.0001
- Subject:
- Law, EU Law
The essays in this book examine several dimensions of human rights activism and advocacy ‘from below’, analysing and discussing the tactics of various social movements, grassroots activism, and NGO ...
More
The essays in this book examine several dimensions of human rights activism and advocacy ‘from below’, analysing and discussing the tactics of various social movements, grassroots activism, and NGO advocacy and strategies, rather than the more typical emphasis of human rights law scholarship on top-down processes and institutions such as courts, treaty-bodies, and state actors. The chapters study LGBTQ+ activism in authoritarian political systems, the attempt by women groups to engage the UN Security Council, the strategies of NGOs as regards using human rights approaches to climate change, the work of Indigenous communities resisting extractivism, and the legal empowerment of communities to pursue human rights more generally. They emphasize the continuing importance of human rights ideas to communities that are dominated or marginalized, and that work within politically or societally authoritarian contexts; the importance of the choice of forum and strategy for seeking to bring about rights-based change; the ways in which mobilization from below can reshape human rights law and transform international legal concepts; and the importance of community-led legal mobilization.Less
The essays in this book examine several dimensions of human rights activism and advocacy ‘from below’, analysing and discussing the tactics of various social movements, grassroots activism, and NGO advocacy and strategies, rather than the more typical emphasis of human rights law scholarship on top-down processes and institutions such as courts, treaty-bodies, and state actors. The chapters study LGBTQ+ activism in authoritarian political systems, the attempt by women groups to engage the UN Security Council, the strategies of NGOs as regards using human rights approaches to climate change, the work of Indigenous communities resisting extractivism, and the legal empowerment of communities to pursue human rights more generally. They emphasize the continuing importance of human rights ideas to communities that are dominated or marginalized, and that work within politically or societally authoritarian contexts; the importance of the choice of forum and strategy for seeking to bring about rights-based change; the ways in which mobilization from below can reshape human rights law and transform international legal concepts; and the importance of community-led legal mobilization.
Douglas A. Johnson and Kathryn Sikkink
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- January 2020
- ISBN:
- 9780198824756
- eISBN:
- 9780191863479
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780198824756.003.0025
- Subject:
- Law, Human Rights and Immigration, Public International Law
The chapter argues that committing our professional futures to human rights struggles requires not only moral commitment but also the sense that we are being effective and strategic in our approaches ...
More
The chapter argues that committing our professional futures to human rights struggles requires not only moral commitment but also the sense that we are being effective and strategic in our approaches to change making. The contribution discusses how to think strategically and apply that thinking to practical situations that are still active arenas of conflict over ideals of justice and present us with complex realities of power imbalance. Focusing on this kind of strategic and outcome oriented human rights practice, the chapter suggests strategies to broaden our understanding of available tactics, use tactical mapping and other strategizing tools to be more effective in an active human rights struggle, and apply analytic frameworks that help us think through the acceptable balance between risk and success in making social change.Less
The chapter argues that committing our professional futures to human rights struggles requires not only moral commitment but also the sense that we are being effective and strategic in our approaches to change making. The contribution discusses how to think strategically and apply that thinking to practical situations that are still active arenas of conflict over ideals of justice and present us with complex realities of power imbalance. Focusing on this kind of strategic and outcome oriented human rights practice, the chapter suggests strategies to broaden our understanding of available tactics, use tactical mapping and other strategizing tools to be more effective in an active human rights struggle, and apply analytic frameworks that help us think through the acceptable balance between risk and success in making social change.
Jonathan Todres, Sarah Higinbotham, and Carol Bellamy
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- December 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780190213343
- eISBN:
- 9780190213367
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780190213343.003.0008
- Subject:
- Law, Public International Law, Human Rights and Immigration
Chapter 8 concludes the book by returning to the guiding principle of children’s rights law: the best interests of the child. The authors seek to explicate the role that children’s literature can and ...
More
Chapter 8 concludes the book by returning to the guiding principle of children’s rights law: the best interests of the child. The authors seek to explicate the role that children’s literature can and does play in educating children about their rights and the rights of others and in contributing to a human rights culture. The Day the Crayons Quit by Drew Daywalt and Oliver Jeffers is offered as a case study to illustrate how many stories convey important messages on multiple human rights issues. The chapter also considers the role of children’s literature in human rights advocacy and human rights education. Finally, the authors consider how children’s literature might help adults enhance their understanding of children rights.Less
Chapter 8 concludes the book by returning to the guiding principle of children’s rights law: the best interests of the child. The authors seek to explicate the role that children’s literature can and does play in educating children about their rights and the rights of others and in contributing to a human rights culture. The Day the Crayons Quit by Drew Daywalt and Oliver Jeffers is offered as a case study to illustrate how many stories convey important messages on multiple human rights issues. The chapter also considers the role of children’s literature in human rights advocacy and human rights education. Finally, the authors consider how children’s literature might help adults enhance their understanding of children rights.
Gráinne de Búrca
- Published in print:
- 2021
- Published Online:
- June 2021
- ISBN:
- 9780198299578
- eISBN:
- 9780191905742
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780198299578.001.0001
- Subject:
- Law, EU Law
In a turbulent era, with illiberal nationalism on the rise and international laws and institutions under persistent threat, this book asks what future the international human rights system has. It ...
More
In a turbulent era, with illiberal nationalism on the rise and international laws and institutions under persistent threat, this book asks what future the international human rights system has. It rejects the claims of those who view human rights law and advocacy as ineffective or worse in challenging injustice. Instead, it presents an experimentalist account of human rights which emphasizes the ongoing engagement between domestic activists and international and domestic institutions and actors in promoting rights-based change. Rather than the monolithic movement depicted in some academic critiques, it discerns a rich and diverse human rights movement which has helped significantly to challenge injustice and advance progressive change in many contexts. Drawing on case studies of gender justice, disability rights, children’s rights and reproductive justice from Pakistan, Argentina and Ireland, the book argues that the human rights movement has made an important difference around the world. It shows that despite daunting contemporary challenges including illiberalism, climate change, inequalities, pandemics and digitalization, human rights advocates and activists are engaged in critical self-reflection, renewal and reform that should enable the human rights movement to engage effectively with these challenges in the future. Indeed, the formidable challenges of our current turbulent era provide powerful reasons to reform, innovate, and strengthen the tools and practices of the human rights movement for the future, rather than abandon it, encourage others to do so, or herald its demise.Less
In a turbulent era, with illiberal nationalism on the rise and international laws and institutions under persistent threat, this book asks what future the international human rights system has. It rejects the claims of those who view human rights law and advocacy as ineffective or worse in challenging injustice. Instead, it presents an experimentalist account of human rights which emphasizes the ongoing engagement between domestic activists and international and domestic institutions and actors in promoting rights-based change. Rather than the monolithic movement depicted in some academic critiques, it discerns a rich and diverse human rights movement which has helped significantly to challenge injustice and advance progressive change in many contexts. Drawing on case studies of gender justice, disability rights, children’s rights and reproductive justice from Pakistan, Argentina and Ireland, the book argues that the human rights movement has made an important difference around the world. It shows that despite daunting contemporary challenges including illiberalism, climate change, inequalities, pandemics and digitalization, human rights advocates and activists are engaged in critical self-reflection, renewal and reform that should enable the human rights movement to engage effectively with these challenges in the future. Indeed, the formidable challenges of our current turbulent era provide powerful reasons to reform, innovate, and strengthen the tools and practices of the human rights movement for the future, rather than abandon it, encourage others to do so, or herald its demise.
Winnifred Fallers Sullivan, Elizabeth Shakman Hurd, Saba Mahmood, and Peter G. Danchin
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- January 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780226248479
- eISBN:
- 9780226248646
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226248646.003.0001
- Subject:
- Religion, Religion and Society
This essay introduces readers to the essays in the volume and its cross cutting themes and topics, including the histories and genealogies of the concept of religious freedom, the difficulties of ...
More
This essay introduces readers to the essays in the volume and its cross cutting themes and topics, including the histories and genealogies of the concept of religious freedom, the difficulties of locating and defining religion, and the interrelationship of law and religion. Examples from Pakistan and Myanmar illustrate the challenges of religious freedom advocacy today. The deployments of religious freedom are multiple and contradictory, at times used to identify the virtuous and condemn the oppressor, other times on behalf of women and minorities, and sometimes to serve narrow sectarian interests of missionaries, governments, and religious authorities. There are significant and not yet fully explored connections between religious freedom advocacy, economic liberalization, and the “free market” model of religious growth.Less
This essay introduces readers to the essays in the volume and its cross cutting themes and topics, including the histories and genealogies of the concept of religious freedom, the difficulties of locating and defining religion, and the interrelationship of law and religion. Examples from Pakistan and Myanmar illustrate the challenges of religious freedom advocacy today. The deployments of religious freedom are multiple and contradictory, at times used to identify the virtuous and condemn the oppressor, other times on behalf of women and minorities, and sometimes to serve narrow sectarian interests of missionaries, governments, and religious authorities. There are significant and not yet fully explored connections between religious freedom advocacy, economic liberalization, and the “free market” model of religious growth.
Philip Alston and Sarah Knuckey (eds)
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- January 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780190239480
- eISBN:
- 9780190239527
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780190239480.001.0001
- Subject:
- Law, Public International Law, Human Rights and Immigration
Fact-finding is at the heart of human rights advocacy, and is often at the center of international disputes about alleged government abuses. Recently, there has been a huge increase in the number and ...
More
Fact-finding is at the heart of human rights advocacy, and is often at the center of international disputes about alleged government abuses. Recently, there has been a huge increase in the number and variety of fact-finding mechanisms established, including by governments, intergovernmental bodies, nongovernmental organizations, and private actors. Human rights fact-finding is often controversial. In addition to objections lodged by some of the governments concerned, more objective observers have offered increasingly in-depth critiques of the composition, methodologies, interpretive techniques, and rigor of some of the investigations. Yet very little comparative or critical research has been undertaken in response, and human rights fact-finding remains strikingly under-examined and under-theorized. This book eschews the narrow focus of much of the older writing on this issue, adopting instead an interdisciplinary approach that combines perspectives from many fields, including international law, political science, forensics, informatics, and critical theory. The chapters combine discussion of methodology, institutional arrangements, theory, and case studies, and adopt critical approaches that challenge the received wisdom in the field. This book attests to the fact that human rights fact-finding practice and scholarship are currently in a period of significant transformation on numerous fronts. A rich scholarship is emerging, and practitioners are pushing forward a broader range of investigative techniques.Less
Fact-finding is at the heart of human rights advocacy, and is often at the center of international disputes about alleged government abuses. Recently, there has been a huge increase in the number and variety of fact-finding mechanisms established, including by governments, intergovernmental bodies, nongovernmental organizations, and private actors. Human rights fact-finding is often controversial. In addition to objections lodged by some of the governments concerned, more objective observers have offered increasingly in-depth critiques of the composition, methodologies, interpretive techniques, and rigor of some of the investigations. Yet very little comparative or critical research has been undertaken in response, and human rights fact-finding remains strikingly under-examined and under-theorized. This book eschews the narrow focus of much of the older writing on this issue, adopting instead an interdisciplinary approach that combines perspectives from many fields, including international law, political science, forensics, informatics, and critical theory. The chapters combine discussion of methodology, institutional arrangements, theory, and case studies, and adopt critical approaches that challenge the received wisdom in the field. This book attests to the fact that human rights fact-finding practice and scholarship are currently in a period of significant transformation on numerous fronts. A rich scholarship is emerging, and practitioners are pushing forward a broader range of investigative techniques.
Gráinne de Búrca (ed.)
- Published in print:
- 2022
- Published Online:
- May 2022
- ISBN:
- 9780192866578
- eISBN:
- 9780191957444
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780192866578.001.0001
- Subject:
- Law, EU Law
There has been a turn in human rights scholarship from a top-down focus on laws, institutions, courts, and elite actors towards a more bottom-up focus on civil society activists, advocacy groups, ...
More
There has been a turn in human rights scholarship from a top-down focus on laws, institutions, courts, and elite actors towards a more bottom-up focus on civil society activists, advocacy groups, affected communities, and social movements. The chapters in this book discuss some of the causes, modalities, choices, and consequences of legal mobilization for human rights, including which groups claim rights, what rights they mobilize to protect, the goals they pursue, the forums they use, the obstacles they encounter, and to what degree and in what ways they are successful. The chapters include case studies of LGBTQ+ activism in authoritarian political systems, women’s engagement with the UN Security Council, the differing strategies of major NGOs as regards human rights approaches to climate change, the work of Indigenous communities resisting extractivism, and the legal empowerment of communities in a range of locations and contexts. Key themes emerging from the chapters include: the importance of the idea of human rights to communities that are dominated or marginalized; the ways in which political and societal authoritarianism shape and limit (but do not necessarily exclude) opportunities for effective mobilization; the importance of the choice of forum for seeking to bring about change; the role intermediary actors such as leading NGOs can play in innovating and reorienting strategies to address pressing challenges; the possibilities for subaltern mobilization to reshape human rights law and transform international legal understandings and concepts; and the importance of supporting genuinely community-led legal mobilization.Less
There has been a turn in human rights scholarship from a top-down focus on laws, institutions, courts, and elite actors towards a more bottom-up focus on civil society activists, advocacy groups, affected communities, and social movements. The chapters in this book discuss some of the causes, modalities, choices, and consequences of legal mobilization for human rights, including which groups claim rights, what rights they mobilize to protect, the goals they pursue, the forums they use, the obstacles they encounter, and to what degree and in what ways they are successful. The chapters include case studies of LGBTQ+ activism in authoritarian political systems, women’s engagement with the UN Security Council, the differing strategies of major NGOs as regards human rights approaches to climate change, the work of Indigenous communities resisting extractivism, and the legal empowerment of communities in a range of locations and contexts. Key themes emerging from the chapters include: the importance of the idea of human rights to communities that are dominated or marginalized; the ways in which political and societal authoritarianism shape and limit (but do not necessarily exclude) opportunities for effective mobilization; the importance of the choice of forum for seeking to bring about change; the role intermediary actors such as leading NGOs can play in innovating and reorienting strategies to address pressing challenges; the possibilities for subaltern mobilization to reshape human rights law and transform international legal understandings and concepts; and the importance of supporting genuinely community-led legal mobilization.
Hun Joon Kim
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- August 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780801452390
- eISBN:
- 9780801470677
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Cornell University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7591/cornell/9780801452390.001.0001
- Subject:
- Political Science, Asian Politics
This book presents a compelling story of state violence, human rights advocacy, and transitional justice in South Korea since 1947. The “Jeju 4.3 events” were a series of armed uprisings and ...
More
This book presents a compelling story of state violence, human rights advocacy, and transitional justice in South Korea since 1947. The “Jeju 4.3 events” were a series of armed uprisings and counterinsurgency actions that occurred between 1947 and 1954 in the rugged landscape around Mt. Halla in Jeju Province, South Korea. The counterinsurgency strategy was extremely brutal. The conflict resulted in an estimated thirty thousand deaths. News of this enormous loss of life was carefully suppressed until the success of the 1987 June Democracy Movement. This book traces the grassroots advocacy campaign that ultimately resulted in the creation of a truth commission with a threefold mandate: to investigate what happened in Jeju, to identify the victims, and to restore the honor of those victims. Although an official report was issued in 2003, resulting in an official apology from President Roh Moo Hyun (the first presidential apology for the abuse of state power in South Korea's history) the commission's work continues to this day. It has long been believed that truth commissions are most likely to be established immediately after a democratic transition, as a result of a power game involving old and new elites. The book tells a different story: it emphasizes the importance of sixty years of local activist work and the long history of truth's suppression.Less
This book presents a compelling story of state violence, human rights advocacy, and transitional justice in South Korea since 1947. The “Jeju 4.3 events” were a series of armed uprisings and counterinsurgency actions that occurred between 1947 and 1954 in the rugged landscape around Mt. Halla in Jeju Province, South Korea. The counterinsurgency strategy was extremely brutal. The conflict resulted in an estimated thirty thousand deaths. News of this enormous loss of life was carefully suppressed until the success of the 1987 June Democracy Movement. This book traces the grassroots advocacy campaign that ultimately resulted in the creation of a truth commission with a threefold mandate: to investigate what happened in Jeju, to identify the victims, and to restore the honor of those victims. Although an official report was issued in 2003, resulting in an official apology from President Roh Moo Hyun (the first presidential apology for the abuse of state power in South Korea's history) the commission's work continues to this day. It has long been believed that truth commissions are most likely to be established immediately after a democratic transition, as a result of a power game involving old and new elites. The book tells a different story: it emphasizes the importance of sixty years of local activist work and the long history of truth's suppression.