Robert C. Johansen
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- May 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780195395914
- eISBN:
- 9780199776801
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195395914.003.0008
- Subject:
- Political Science, International Relations and Politics
This chapter examines the complex interplay between international judicial processes and peace. Johansen engages the debate on international judicial activism, evaluating specific cases, especially ...
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This chapter examines the complex interplay between international judicial processes and peace. Johansen engages the debate on international judicial activism, evaluating specific cases, especially the International Criminal Court’s indictment of leaders of the Lord’s Resistance Army in Uganda. Judicial proceedings have complex consequences for a wide range of conflict issues, including negotiating ceasefires, deterring future crimes, and prospects for post-conflict reconciliation. The author proposes guidelines for employing judicial processes to promote an end to conflict, based on a utilitarian ethic that gives priority to saving as many lives as possible. The guidelines consider how to advance peace and justice not only through judicial proceedings, but also when judicial proceedings are suspended.Less
This chapter examines the complex interplay between international judicial processes and peace. Johansen engages the debate on international judicial activism, evaluating specific cases, especially the International Criminal Court’s indictment of leaders of the Lord’s Resistance Army in Uganda. Judicial proceedings have complex consequences for a wide range of conflict issues, including negotiating ceasefires, deterring future crimes, and prospects for post-conflict reconciliation. The author proposes guidelines for employing judicial processes to promote an end to conflict, based on a utilitarian ethic that gives priority to saving as many lives as possible. The guidelines consider how to advance peace and justice not only through judicial proceedings, but also when judicial proceedings are suspended.
Peter Leman
- Published in print:
- 2020
- Published Online:
- January 2021
- ISBN:
- 9781789621136
- eISBN:
- 9781800341227
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Liverpool University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3828/liverpool/9781789621136.003.0003
- Subject:
- Literature, Criticism/Theory
In Artist, the Ruler (1986), Okot p’Bitek claims that the oral artist in Africa “proclaims the laws but expresses them in the most indirect language: through metaphor and symbol, in image and fable. ...
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In Artist, the Ruler (1986), Okot p’Bitek claims that the oral artist in Africa “proclaims the laws but expresses them in the most indirect language: through metaphor and symbol, in image and fable. He sings and dances his laws.” This provocative observation was one of the starting points for this book as a whole, and, here, I examine Song of Lawino (1966) and Song of Ocol (1967) in light of his claim that the oral artist is a lawmaker. I also situate his work in relationship to recent conversations about law and modernity in Northern Uganda’s struggle against the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA). Although his work appeared long before the LRA, many of Okot’s texts have reemerged as part of a conversation about how to achieve reconciliation now that the conflict has largely ended. To account for this reception, I draw on Russell Samolsky’s concept of “apocalyptic futures,” arguing that the oral jurisprudence of Okot’s texts has “revealed itself to be ahead of its time,” taking on new significance in the context of the LRA, particularly in portraying Acholi legal principles critical to post-conflict reconciliation.Less
In Artist, the Ruler (1986), Okot p’Bitek claims that the oral artist in Africa “proclaims the laws but expresses them in the most indirect language: through metaphor and symbol, in image and fable. He sings and dances his laws.” This provocative observation was one of the starting points for this book as a whole, and, here, I examine Song of Lawino (1966) and Song of Ocol (1967) in light of his claim that the oral artist is a lawmaker. I also situate his work in relationship to recent conversations about law and modernity in Northern Uganda’s struggle against the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA). Although his work appeared long before the LRA, many of Okot’s texts have reemerged as part of a conversation about how to achieve reconciliation now that the conflict has largely ended. To account for this reception, I draw on Russell Samolsky’s concept of “apocalyptic futures,” arguing that the oral jurisprudence of Okot’s texts has “revealed itself to be ahead of its time,” taking on new significance in the context of the LRA, particularly in portraying Acholi legal principles critical to post-conflict reconciliation.