Alexander Segovia
- Published in print:
- 2006
- Published Online:
- May 2006
- ISBN:
- 9780199291922
- eISBN:
- 9780191603716
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/0199291926.003.0005
- Subject:
- Political Science, International Relations and Politics
Truth commissions were created to investigate human rights violations as a result of political negotiations in both El Salvador and Haiti. The commissions included in their reports recommendations ...
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Truth commissions were created to investigate human rights violations as a result of political negotiations in both El Salvador and Haiti. The commissions included in their reports recommendations designed to secure reparations for the victims. However, despite the gravity of the events and the formal commitment of the governments, neither El Salvador nor Haiti has implemented these recommendations. Two case studies provide an opportunity to examine the economic, social, and political factors that explain non-compliance with truth-commission recommendations on reparations. This paper examines the experiences of El Salvador and Haiti, and presents some conclusions and lessons learned. The first and most important conclusion is that in order to ensure that reparations programs will be put into practice, a correlation of political forces that favors such programs is necessary. The construction of such a correlation depends on the existence of sufficiently powerful and influential players to promote and defend it.Less
Truth commissions were created to investigate human rights violations as a result of political negotiations in both El Salvador and Haiti. The commissions included in their reports recommendations designed to secure reparations for the victims. However, despite the gravity of the events and the formal commitment of the governments, neither El Salvador nor Haiti has implemented these recommendations. Two case studies provide an opportunity to examine the economic, social, and political factors that explain non-compliance with truth-commission recommendations on reparations. This paper examines the experiences of El Salvador and Haiti, and presents some conclusions and lessons learned. The first and most important conclusion is that in order to ensure that reparations programs will be put into practice, a correlation of political forces that favors such programs is necessary. The construction of such a correlation depends on the existence of sufficiently powerful and influential players to promote and defend it.
Christopher J. Colvin
- Published in print:
- 2006
- Published Online:
- May 2006
- ISBN:
- 9780199291922
- eISBN:
- 9780191603716
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/0199291926.003.0006
- Subject:
- Political Science, International Relations and Politics
This paper explores the reparations debate in post-apartheid South Africa and outlines the recommendations for reparations made by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC). Although reparations ...
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This paper explores the reparations debate in post-apartheid South Africa and outlines the recommendations for reparations made by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC). Although reparations were discussed at the multi-party negotiations at the end of apartheid, the new democratic constitution that came out of those negotiations did not provide for reparations. The legislation that created the TRC, however, established a special committee (the Committee on Reparations and Rehabilitation or CRR) to formally examine the reparations issue and make policy recommendations to the President. The CRR made its recommendations — widely considered to be one of the world’s most ambitious and comprehensive reparations policies — in the TRC’s 1998 Report. However, the South African government did not respond to these recommendations, arguing that since the work of other committees within the TRC was not yet finished, it could not consider the CRR’s proposed policy. Victim groups and civil society disagreed, and an acrimonious conflict ensued over the perceived slow pace of government action on reparations. Victims also pursued lawsuits for reparations against multinational corporations that conducted business with the apartheid government. In 2003, the government finally enacted a reduced version of the CRR’s original reparations policy.Less
This paper explores the reparations debate in post-apartheid South Africa and outlines the recommendations for reparations made by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC). Although reparations were discussed at the multi-party negotiations at the end of apartheid, the new democratic constitution that came out of those negotiations did not provide for reparations. The legislation that created the TRC, however, established a special committee (the Committee on Reparations and Rehabilitation or CRR) to formally examine the reparations issue and make policy recommendations to the President. The CRR made its recommendations — widely considered to be one of the world’s most ambitious and comprehensive reparations policies — in the TRC’s 1998 Report. However, the South African government did not respond to these recommendations, arguing that since the work of other committees within the TRC was not yet finished, it could not consider the CRR’s proposed policy. Victim groups and civil society disagreed, and an acrimonious conflict ensued over the perceived slow pace of government action on reparations. Victims also pursued lawsuits for reparations against multinational corporations that conducted business with the apartheid government. In 2003, the government finally enacted a reduced version of the CRR’s original reparations policy.
Diana Cammack
- Published in print:
- 2006
- Published Online:
- May 2006
- ISBN:
- 9780199291922
- eISBN:
- 9780191603716
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/0199291926.003.0007
- Subject:
- Political Science, International Relations and Politics
Malawi’s five methods of paying reparations — court awards, the government’s Disaster Preparedness, Relief and Rehabilitation program, civil service grants, special payments to the political elite, ...
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Malawi’s five methods of paying reparations — court awards, the government’s Disaster Preparedness, Relief and Rehabilitation program, civil service grants, special payments to the political elite, and the National Compensation Tribunal (NCT) — have not brought public closure to past rights abuses and the antipathy they engendered. NCT procedures, which included neither public truth-telling nor the identification of perpetrators, have not fostered democratic consolidation. Growing out of a political compromise during the transition, the NCT has received nearly 20,000 claims and paid interim awards to less than one-third. Eligible are Malawians of any age who, between July 6, 1964 and May 17, 1994, were born in detention or exile, were subjected to wrongful imprisonment, forced exile, personal injury, lost property or business, lost educational opportunities, and/or employment benefits. An autonomous body within the judiciary, the NCT has been consistently underfunded and has limited the bulk of its payments to symbolic “condolences”. While the public is generally ignorant of the NCT, claimants are frustrated by its procedures, its “trivialization” of their pain and suffering, its “favouritism” as well as its failure to offer them full compensation, information about future payments, or a “sincere apology”. The existence of the NCT has allowed politicians to counter periodic public demands for a truth commission by asserting that the NCT is addressing the past and nothing more is needed.Less
Malawi’s five methods of paying reparations — court awards, the government’s Disaster Preparedness, Relief and Rehabilitation program, civil service grants, special payments to the political elite, and the National Compensation Tribunal (NCT) — have not brought public closure to past rights abuses and the antipathy they engendered. NCT procedures, which included neither public truth-telling nor the identification of perpetrators, have not fostered democratic consolidation. Growing out of a political compromise during the transition, the NCT has received nearly 20,000 claims and paid interim awards to less than one-third. Eligible are Malawians of any age who, between July 6, 1964 and May 17, 1994, were born in detention or exile, were subjected to wrongful imprisonment, forced exile, personal injury, lost property or business, lost educational opportunities, and/or employment benefits. An autonomous body within the judiciary, the NCT has been consistently underfunded and has limited the bulk of its payments to symbolic “condolences”. While the public is generally ignorant of the NCT, claimants are frustrated by its procedures, its “trivialization” of their pain and suffering, its “favouritism” as well as its failure to offer them full compensation, information about future payments, or a “sincere apology”. The existence of the NCT has allowed politicians to counter periodic public demands for a truth commission by asserting that the NCT is addressing the past and nothing more is needed.
Alexandra Barahona de Brito, Carmen González‐Enríquez, and Paloma Aguilar
- Published in print:
- 2001
- Published Online:
- November 2003
- ISBN:
- 9780199240906
- eISBN:
- 9780191598869
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/0199240906.003.0001
- Subject:
- Political Science, Democratization
The general aim of this book is to shed light on how countries deal with legacies of repression during a transition from authoritarian or totalitarian rule to democratic rule. Two broad kinds of ...
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The general aim of this book is to shed light on how countries deal with legacies of repression during a transition from authoritarian or totalitarian rule to democratic rule. Two broad kinds of transition are covered: those that occur as a result of the collapse of the old regimes or regime forces, as in Portugal, Argentina, Central and Eastern Europe, Russia and Germany after reunification, where collapse was followed by absorption into another state; and those that are negotiated between an incoming democratic elite and an old regime, as in Spain, the southern cone of Latin America, Central America and South Africa. Because of this range of transitional situations, it is possible to see how varying degrees of political, social and institutional constraints affect the solutions adopted or limit opportunities to deal with the past, and to permit a comparative analysis of the variety of policies adopted, establishing links between one and the other. The book concentrates on the presence (or absence) of three kinds of official or government-sponsored efforts to come to terms with the past: truth commissions, trials and amnesties, and purges; to a lesser extent, it also looks at policies of compensation, restitution or reparation. At the same time, it focuses on unofficial and private initiatives emerging from within society to deal with the past – usually promoted by human rights organizations (HROs), churches, political parties and other civil society organizations; in doing this, the book examines a ‘politics of memory’ whereby societies rework the past in a wider cultural arena, both during the transitions and after official transitional policies have been implemented and even forgotten. The different sections of the Introduction are: Truth and Justice in Periods of Political Change: An Overview; What Can be Done about an Authoritarian Past? Limits and Possibilities of Transition Types and Other Variables; Beyond the Transitional Period: Authoritarian and Long-Term Historical Legacies; Truth, Justice and Democracy; and Memory Making and Democratization.Less
The general aim of this book is to shed light on how countries deal with legacies of repression during a transition from authoritarian or totalitarian rule to democratic rule. Two broad kinds of transition are covered: those that occur as a result of the collapse of the old regimes or regime forces, as in Portugal, Argentina, Central and Eastern Europe, Russia and Germany after reunification, where collapse was followed by absorption into another state; and those that are negotiated between an incoming democratic elite and an old regime, as in Spain, the southern cone of Latin America, Central America and South Africa. Because of this range of transitional situations, it is possible to see how varying degrees of political, social and institutional constraints affect the solutions adopted or limit opportunities to deal with the past, and to permit a comparative analysis of the variety of policies adopted, establishing links between one and the other. The book concentrates on the presence (or absence) of three kinds of official or government-sponsored efforts to come to terms with the past: truth commissions, trials and amnesties, and purges; to a lesser extent, it also looks at policies of compensation, restitution or reparation. At the same time, it focuses on unofficial and private initiatives emerging from within society to deal with the past – usually promoted by human rights organizations (HROs), churches, political parties and other civil society organizations; in doing this, the book examines a ‘politics of memory’ whereby societies rework the past in a wider cultural arena, both during the transitions and after official transitional policies have been implemented and even forgotten. The different sections of the Introduction are: Truth and Justice in Periods of Political Change: An Overview; What Can be Done about an Authoritarian Past? Limits and Possibilities of Transition Types and Other Variables; Beyond the Transitional Period: Authoritarian and Long-Term Historical Legacies; Truth, Justice and Democracy; and Memory Making and Democratization.
Richard A. Wilson
- Published in print:
- 2001
- Published Online:
- November 2003
- ISBN:
- 9780199240906
- eISBN:
- 9780191598869
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/0199240906.003.0007
- Subject:
- Political Science, Democratization
An examination is made of various aspects of justice and legitimacy in the transition from authoritarianism to democracy in South Africa. The major part of the chapter discusses the Truth and ...
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An examination is made of various aspects of justice and legitimacy in the transition from authoritarianism to democracy in South Africa. The major part of the chapter discusses the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC). The different sections of the chapter are: Introduction; Race, Nationalism, and Political Violence – a discussion of the causes of the massive levels of political violence in the recent history of South Africa; The Negotiations for a Transition; Negotiating an Amnesty; and the TRC as a Liminal Institution; and Concluding Remarks.Less
An examination is made of various aspects of justice and legitimacy in the transition from authoritarianism to democracy in South Africa. The major part of the chapter discusses the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC). The different sections of the chapter are: Introduction; Race, Nationalism, and Political Violence – a discussion of the causes of the massive levels of political violence in the recent history of South Africa; The Negotiations for a Transition; Negotiating an Amnesty; and the TRC as a Liminal Institution; and Concluding Remarks.
Margaret Urban Walker
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- September 2007
- ISBN:
- 9780195315394
- eISBN:
- 9780199872053
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195315394.003.0009
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Feminist Philosophy
The proliferation of truth commissions and the establishment of a “right to truth” concerning human rights violations embody a politics of transparency that makes moral claims for truth telling about ...
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The proliferation of truth commissions and the establishment of a “right to truth” concerning human rights violations embody a politics of transparency that makes moral claims for truth telling about violence and injustice. This chapter argues that having told, being told, and telling truths in these cases has more than the instrumental value of identifying wrongs. Truth telling, through acknowledgment and voice, serves to establish or restore the dignity of victims and to reconfigure a moral community. Dignity is the moral standing of a full participant in practices of mutual accountability. Acknowledgment, as successful apology shows, validates a victims'experience and shifts the reflective equilibrium of common belief to secure stable recognition. Having voice demonstrates one's competence and credibility as a giver of accounts, a constitutive feature of full participation in practices of accountability.Less
The proliferation of truth commissions and the establishment of a “right to truth” concerning human rights violations embody a politics of transparency that makes moral claims for truth telling about violence and injustice. This chapter argues that having told, being told, and telling truths in these cases has more than the instrumental value of identifying wrongs. Truth telling, through acknowledgment and voice, serves to establish or restore the dignity of victims and to reconfigure a moral community. Dignity is the moral standing of a full participant in practices of mutual accountability. Acknowledgment, as successful apology shows, validates a victims'experience and shifts the reflective equilibrium of common belief to secure stable recognition. Having voice demonstrates one's competence and credibility as a giver of accounts, a constitutive feature of full participation in practices of accountability.
Rachel Sieder
- Published in print:
- 2001
- Published Online:
- November 2003
- ISBN:
- 9780199240906
- eISBN:
- 9780191598869
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/0199240906.003.0006
- Subject:
- Political Science, Democratization
This chapter considers the role of ‘memory politics’ – understood as the combination of official and unofficial attempts to deal with the legacy of past violations – in the struggle for ...
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This chapter considers the role of ‘memory politics’ – understood as the combination of official and unofficial attempts to deal with the legacy of past violations – in the struggle for democratization in Central America: official initiatives can include truth commissions, amnesty dispensations, criminal investigations and prosecutions, and a range of institutional reforms aimed at redressing the previous failure of the state to guarantee human rights; unofficial initiatives developed by civil society actors to confront the past can include investigations of violations, legal actions, and different kinds of commemorative acts and exercises in collective memory. Memory politics operates at multiple levels and involves a diversity of agents, including local communities, national and international non-governmental human rights organizations (HROs), governments, the media, and, in the case of Central America, the UN; however, it is suggested here that its long-term effects in any national context depend on the interaction between official and unofficial efforts to address the legacies of the past. The experiences of memory politics analysed in this chapter are those of El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala, the three Central American countries that during the 1990s undertook official processes of investigating past violations of human rights. The precise nature of memory politics and the impact it has had varied considerably in these three countries, and it is suggested that four interrelated factors are central to explaining differences between the respective national experiences: the first is the specific political and social legacies of human rights abuse in each country; the second concerns the circumstances of the transition from war to peace, specifically the prevailing balance of forces and the trade-off between truth and justice that this engendered in each case; the third is the role of local HROs and civil society in general in the politics of memory; and the fourth is the role of international governmental and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in efforts to uncover the truth about the past and to address the consequences of violations. The first three sections of the chapter compare the legacies of human rights abuses, the transitional trade-offs between truth and justice, and the role of civil society organizations and international actors in the memory politics of El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala; the final section considers the impact of memory politics on the prospects for democracy in these countries.Less
This chapter considers the role of ‘memory politics’ – understood as the combination of official and unofficial attempts to deal with the legacy of past violations – in the struggle for democratization in Central America: official initiatives can include truth commissions, amnesty dispensations, criminal investigations and prosecutions, and a range of institutional reforms aimed at redressing the previous failure of the state to guarantee human rights; unofficial initiatives developed by civil society actors to confront the past can include investigations of violations, legal actions, and different kinds of commemorative acts and exercises in collective memory. Memory politics operates at multiple levels and involves a diversity of agents, including local communities, national and international non-governmental human rights organizations (HROs), governments, the media, and, in the case of Central America, the UN; however, it is suggested here that its long-term effects in any national context depend on the interaction between official and unofficial efforts to address the legacies of the past. The experiences of memory politics analysed in this chapter are those of El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala, the three Central American countries that during the 1990s undertook official processes of investigating past violations of human rights. The precise nature of memory politics and the impact it has had varied considerably in these three countries, and it is suggested that four interrelated factors are central to explaining differences between the respective national experiences: the first is the specific political and social legacies of human rights abuse in each country; the second concerns the circumstances of the transition from war to peace, specifically the prevailing balance of forces and the trade-off between truth and justice that this engendered in each case; the third is the role of local HROs and civil society in general in the politics of memory; and the fourth is the role of international governmental and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in efforts to uncover the truth about the past and to address the consequences of violations. The first three sections of the chapter compare the legacies of human rights abuses, the transitional trade-offs between truth and justice, and the role of civil society organizations and international actors in the memory politics of El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala; the final section considers the impact of memory politics on the prospects for democracy in these countries.
Alexandra Barahona De Brito, Carmen Gonzalez Enriquez, and Paloma Aguilar (eds)
- Published in print:
- 2001
- Published Online:
- November 2003
- ISBN:
- 9780199240906
- eISBN:
- 9780191598869
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/0199240906.001.0001
- Subject:
- Political Science, Democratization
The book explores how new democracies face an authoritarian past and past human rights violations, and the way in which policies of truth and justice shape the process of democratization. Eighteen ...
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The book explores how new democracies face an authoritarian past and past human rights violations, and the way in which policies of truth and justice shape the process of democratization. Eighteen countries in Central and South America, Central, Eastern and South Europe and South Africa are analysed in detail. The main variables affecting the implementation of truth and justice policies (purges, truth commissions and trials, among other policies) are: the balance between old and new regime forces; the availability of institutional, human and financial resources, the nature of the ideological preferences and commitments of the elites in question; the mobilization of social groups pressing in favour of these policies; and the importance of human rights in the international arena. The duration and degree of institutionalization of dictatorship is also important. A prolonged dictatorship makes it harder for a new democracy to implement truth and justice policies, particularly when repression occurred in the distant past and if repression gained social complicity. The magnitude and methods of repression used against opposition forces in the dictatorship also shape transitional truth and justice: torture, assassination, and disappearances and clandestine repression in general (as in Central and South America, South Africa) require a different response to official institutionalized ‘softer’ repression (as in Portugal, Spain and Eastern Europe). The findings indicate that, with hindsight, there appears to be no direct relation between the implementation of policies of backward-looking truth and justice and the quality of new democracies. Democracy is just as strong and deep in Spain, Hungary and Uruguay, where there was no punishment or truth telling, as it is in Portugal, the Czech Republic or Argentina, which experienced purges and trials. However, such policies are justified not merely on instrumental grounds, but also for ethical reasons, and they symbolize a break with a violent, undemocratic past.Less
The book explores how new democracies face an authoritarian past and past human rights violations, and the way in which policies of truth and justice shape the process of democratization. Eighteen countries in Central and South America, Central, Eastern and South Europe and South Africa are analysed in detail. The main variables affecting the implementation of truth and justice policies (purges, truth commissions and trials, among other policies) are: the balance between old and new regime forces; the availability of institutional, human and financial resources, the nature of the ideological preferences and commitments of the elites in question; the mobilization of social groups pressing in favour of these policies; and the importance of human rights in the international arena. The duration and degree of institutionalization of dictatorship is also important. A prolonged dictatorship makes it harder for a new democracy to implement truth and justice policies, particularly when repression occurred in the distant past and if repression gained social complicity. The magnitude and methods of repression used against opposition forces in the dictatorship also shape transitional truth and justice: torture, assassination, and disappearances and clandestine repression in general (as in Central and South America, South Africa) require a different response to official institutionalized ‘softer’ repression (as in Portugal, Spain and Eastern Europe). The findings indicate that, with hindsight, there appears to be no direct relation between the implementation of policies of backward-looking truth and justice and the quality of new democracies. Democracy is just as strong and deep in Spain, Hungary and Uruguay, where there was no punishment or truth telling, as it is in Portugal, the Czech Republic or Argentina, which experienced purges and trials. However, such policies are justified not merely on instrumental grounds, but also for ethical reasons, and they symbolize a break with a violent, undemocratic past.
Elizabeth Beck and Andrea Wood
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- January 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780195394641
- eISBN:
- 9780199863365
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195394641.003.0004
- Subject:
- Social Work, Communities and Organizations
This chapter discusses the four major restorative practices: victim-offender dialogues, family group conferences, peacemaking circles, and truth and reconciliation commissions. It offers individuals ...
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This chapter discusses the four major restorative practices: victim-offender dialogues, family group conferences, peacemaking circles, and truth and reconciliation commissions. It offers individuals who have not participated in a restorative practice the opportunity to envision each of the processes from preparation through follow-through. While the practices highlighted are often used in the aftermath of crime, all of them can be adapted to addressing wrongdoing in a number of other contexts. Examined for each of the descriptions are foundational principles that underpin the practice, an overview of the preparation, the process of the actual encounter, and follow up. Finally, the chapter offers some thoughts about why the process can be so effective.Less
This chapter discusses the four major restorative practices: victim-offender dialogues, family group conferences, peacemaking circles, and truth and reconciliation commissions. It offers individuals who have not participated in a restorative practice the opportunity to envision each of the processes from preparation through follow-through. While the practices highlighted are often used in the aftermath of crime, all of them can be adapted to addressing wrongdoing in a number of other contexts. Examined for each of the descriptions are foundational principles that underpin the practice, an overview of the preparation, the process of the actual encounter, and follow up. Finally, the chapter offers some thoughts about why the process can be so effective.
Naomi Roht-Arriaza
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- May 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780195395914
- eISBN:
- 9780199776801
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195395914.003.0009
- Subject:
- Political Science, International Relations and Politics
In addressing past human rights violations, strategic peacebuilding must pay attention not only to efforts at the state level, but also to local, transnational, and international actors. The role of ...
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In addressing past human rights violations, strategic peacebuilding must pay attention not only to efforts at the state level, but also to local, transnational, and international actors. The role of international courts and tribunals in generating pressure for domestic prosecution is one pertinent example. While recognizing the critical importance of each level, Roht-Arriaza highlights the role of local initiatives in complementing international and national efforts by changing conflict-created power dynamics and fostering ownership on a larger scale. These initiatives include memorializing past atrocities, local involvement in national truth commissions, and local justice mechanisms.Less
In addressing past human rights violations, strategic peacebuilding must pay attention not only to efforts at the state level, but also to local, transnational, and international actors. The role of international courts and tribunals in generating pressure for domestic prosecution is one pertinent example. While recognizing the critical importance of each level, Roht-Arriaza highlights the role of local initiatives in complementing international and national efforts by changing conflict-created power dynamics and fostering ownership on a larger scale. These initiatives include memorializing past atrocities, local involvement in national truth commissions, and local justice mechanisms.
Naomi Roht‐Arriaza
- Published in print:
- 2001
- Published Online:
- November 2003
- ISBN:
- 9780199240906
- eISBN:
- 9780191598869
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/0199240906.003.0002
- Subject:
- Political Science, Democratization
The response of an incoming government to past crimes and gross violations of human rights depends primarily on a combination of domestic political, military and socioeconomic factors. However, ...
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The response of an incoming government to past crimes and gross violations of human rights depends primarily on a combination of domestic political, military and socioeconomic factors. However, international influences and institutions play an increasing role in shaping and affecting these processes. International efforts are in turn shaped partly by the perceived success or failure of domestic attempts to deal with the past. This chapter focuses on three areas in which these mutual influences manifest themselves: first, it examines the impact of international and transnational activity on the work of national courts, truth commissions, reparation schemes and political discourses about the past; second, it looks at the possibility of simultaneous actions in multiple arenas, since transnational justice also takes the form of legal actions brought in the national courts of one country against civil or criminal defendants based in another; the third area of influence discussed is the creation of new international institutions for accountability, although the extent to which these international efforts have influenced political or social reconstruction within societies is still unclear. The different sections of the chapter are: Introduction; Human Rights Institutions and Norms; Transnational Justice: The Pinochet Precedent; International Justice: The ‘Ad Hoc’ Tribunals and the ICC (International Criminal Court); and Conclusion.Less
The response of an incoming government to past crimes and gross violations of human rights depends primarily on a combination of domestic political, military and socioeconomic factors. However, international influences and institutions play an increasing role in shaping and affecting these processes. International efforts are in turn shaped partly by the perceived success or failure of domestic attempts to deal with the past. This chapter focuses on three areas in which these mutual influences manifest themselves: first, it examines the impact of international and transnational activity on the work of national courts, truth commissions, reparation schemes and political discourses about the past; second, it looks at the possibility of simultaneous actions in multiple arenas, since transnational justice also takes the form of legal actions brought in the national courts of one country against civil or criminal defendants based in another; the third area of influence discussed is the creation of new international institutions for accountability, although the extent to which these international efforts have influenced political or social reconstruction within societies is still unclear. The different sections of the chapter are: Introduction; Human Rights Institutions and Norms; Transnational Justice: The Pinochet Precedent; International Justice: The ‘Ad Hoc’ Tribunals and the ICC (International Criminal Court); and Conclusion.
Jill Stauffer
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- May 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780231171502
- eISBN:
- 9780231538732
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Columbia University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7312/columbia/9780231171502.003.0003
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Moral Philosophy
Discusses the pros and cons of using trials and truth commissions to respond to widespread injustice, framing the discussion as a question of repair. Argues that we need to be more careful about ...
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Discusses the pros and cons of using trials and truth commissions to respond to widespread injustice, framing the discussion as a question of repair. Argues that we need to be more careful about making claims that institutional proceedings are healing or cathartic for survivors.Less
Discusses the pros and cons of using trials and truth commissions to respond to widespread injustice, framing the discussion as a question of repair. Argues that we need to be more careful about making claims that institutional proceedings are healing or cathartic for survivors.
Nicky Rousseau
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- May 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780719097560
- eISBN:
- 9781526104441
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Manchester University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7228/manchester/9780719097560.003.0008
- Subject:
- Anthropology, Anthropology, Global
The location, exhumation and identification of human remains associated with mass violence and genocide has come to occupy an important place in the panoply of transitional justice measures over the ...
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The location, exhumation and identification of human remains associated with mass violence and genocide has come to occupy an important place in the panoply of transitional justice measures over the past two decades. Yet the issues that accompany this work - and that cut across the ‘politics of dead bodies’ as well as the politics of knowledge and the ‘disciplines of the dead’ - may well exceed the bounds of transitional justice. These issues are explored here via the work of the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC). The article also looks at the practice of reburial, with a specific interest in how it came to be figured, and how it featured in debates on the colonial dead as well as in subsequent work of the Missing Persons Task Team (MPTT), a unit established in the TRC’s wake. The focus on practice seeks to bring to view, not only the body of exhumation, but a range of other agencies or ‘mediating interpretants’ who do, interpret and study the work of exhumation – exhumation teams, families, the media, scholars - and to think these together.Less
The location, exhumation and identification of human remains associated with mass violence and genocide has come to occupy an important place in the panoply of transitional justice measures over the past two decades. Yet the issues that accompany this work - and that cut across the ‘politics of dead bodies’ as well as the politics of knowledge and the ‘disciplines of the dead’ - may well exceed the bounds of transitional justice. These issues are explored here via the work of the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC). The article also looks at the practice of reburial, with a specific interest in how it came to be figured, and how it featured in debates on the colonial dead as well as in subsequent work of the Missing Persons Task Team (MPTT), a unit established in the TRC’s wake. The focus on practice seeks to bring to view, not only the body of exhumation, but a range of other agencies or ‘mediating interpretants’ who do, interpret and study the work of exhumation – exhumation teams, families, the media, scholars - and to think these together.
Aryeh Neier
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- October 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780691135151
- eISBN:
- 9781400841875
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Princeton University Press
- DOI:
- 10.23943/princeton/9780691135151.003.0011
- Subject:
- Sociology, Migration Studies (including Refugee Studies)
This chapter discusses that a major goal of the international human rights movement has been to secure accountability for especially grave abuses. This focus has led to the so-called “truth ...
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This chapter discusses that a major goal of the international human rights movement has been to secure accountability for especially grave abuses. This focus has led to the so-called “truth commissions” in many countries, principally in Latin America and Sub-Saharan Africa, but also in several countries of Asia and in Morocco; prosecutions of literally scores of former heads of state before national courts in various parts of the world; increased use of the principle of universal jurisdiction in prosecutions, mainly in Europe, against those accused of gross abuses committed in other countries; and, what is likely to be the most lasting and significant means of securing accountability, the establishment of several international criminal tribunals to prosecute and punish those accused of war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide.Less
This chapter discusses that a major goal of the international human rights movement has been to secure accountability for especially grave abuses. This focus has led to the so-called “truth commissions” in many countries, principally in Latin America and Sub-Saharan Africa, but also in several countries of Asia and in Morocco; prosecutions of literally scores of former heads of state before national courts in various parts of the world; increased use of the principle of universal jurisdiction in prosecutions, mainly in Europe, against those accused of gross abuses committed in other countries; and, what is likely to be the most lasting and significant means of securing accountability, the establishment of several international criminal tribunals to prosecute and punish those accused of war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide.
Jann K. Kleffner
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- May 2009
- ISBN:
- 9780199238453
- eISBN:
- 9780191716744
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199238453.003.0006
- Subject:
- Law, Public International Law
This chapter addresses the question whether and to what extent the Statute obliges States to exercise their jurisdiction over ICC crimes. It concludes that the Statute imposes on States Parties, ...
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This chapter addresses the question whether and to what extent the Statute obliges States to exercise their jurisdiction over ICC crimes. It concludes that the Statute imposes on States Parties, which have established jurisdiction that conforms to international law — an affirmative obligation to exercise their jurisdiction. That obligation is a uniform obligation applicable to all ICC crimes. Some doubt is expressed as to whether this essentially categorical obligation is entirely satisfactory. While it is a well-founded general rule, account should have been taken (or should be taken in the future) of the fact that there might be exceptions to that rule. However, the Statute fails to accommodate genuine alternatives to criminal prosecutions and does not set forth parameters, which could guide States in considering whether and under what conditions they may opt for mechanisms such as truth commissions, traditional forms of justice, and the exercise of prosecutorial discretion.Less
This chapter addresses the question whether and to what extent the Statute obliges States to exercise their jurisdiction over ICC crimes. It concludes that the Statute imposes on States Parties, which have established jurisdiction that conforms to international law — an affirmative obligation to exercise their jurisdiction. That obligation is a uniform obligation applicable to all ICC crimes. Some doubt is expressed as to whether this essentially categorical obligation is entirely satisfactory. While it is a well-founded general rule, account should have been taken (or should be taken in the future) of the fact that there might be exceptions to that rule. However, the Statute fails to accommodate genuine alternatives to criminal prosecutions and does not set forth parameters, which could guide States in considering whether and under what conditions they may opt for mechanisms such as truth commissions, traditional forms of justice, and the exercise of prosecutorial discretion.
Virginia Garrard‐Burnett
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- February 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780195379648
- eISBN:
- 9780199869176
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195379648.003.0001
- Subject:
- Religion, Religion and Society
This chapter provides a narrative outline of the events that occurred during the Ríos Montt presidency. It engages with the existing literature, most of which is either anthropological or political ...
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This chapter provides a narrative outline of the events that occurred during the Ríos Montt presidency. It engages with the existing literature, most of which is either anthropological or political in nature, in two main areas. These include (1) a review of the debates about the nature of the military’s scorched‐earth campaign against the indigenous Maya, and (2) a preliminary exploration of literature on genocide, to test whether the Guatemalan case does or does not constitute genocide, using a legal and a commonsense definition. The sources for this chapter are mainly secondary, constituting a review of the current literature on this period, and an analysis of the methodologies used in producing the two truth commission reports.Less
This chapter provides a narrative outline of the events that occurred during the Ríos Montt presidency. It engages with the existing literature, most of which is either anthropological or political in nature, in two main areas. These include (1) a review of the debates about the nature of the military’s scorched‐earth campaign against the indigenous Maya, and (2) a preliminary exploration of literature on genocide, to test whether the Guatemalan case does or does not constitute genocide, using a legal and a commonsense definition. The sources for this chapter are mainly secondary, constituting a review of the current literature on this period, and an analysis of the methodologies used in producing the two truth commission reports.
Veena Das, Arthur Kleinman, Margaret Lock, Mamphela Ramphele, and Pamela Reynolds
- Published in print:
- 2001
- Published Online:
- May 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780520223295
- eISBN:
- 9780520924857
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of California Press
- DOI:
- 10.1525/california/9780520223295.003.0007
- Subject:
- Anthropology, Anthropology, Global
This chapter discusses the testimonies made by women before the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission. It analyses on whose behalf women speak, what they say, and how it is said. It notes ...
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This chapter discusses the testimonies made by women before the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission. It analyses on whose behalf women speak, what they say, and how it is said. It notes that the stories that the women told to the Commission during the first five weeks of its hearings differed from one another in many respects. This chapter also shows that when taken as a whole, their testimonies illustrated the gaps in women's public speech, including absences and silences that mostly had to do with representation of their own physical experiences of violation.Less
This chapter discusses the testimonies made by women before the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission. It analyses on whose behalf women speak, what they say, and how it is said. It notes that the stories that the women told to the Commission during the first five weeks of its hearings differed from one another in many respects. This chapter also shows that when taken as a whole, their testimonies illustrated the gaps in women's public speech, including absences and silences that mostly had to do with representation of their own physical experiences of violation.
Beth S Lyons
- Published in print:
- 2004
- Published Online:
- January 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780199276745
- eISBN:
- 9780191707650
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199276745.003.0006
- Subject:
- Law, Public International Law
Truth commissions have become an almost ubiquitous policy option in the range of accountability mechanisms for human rights violations. In East Timor, the Commission for Reception, Truth and ...
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Truth commissions have become an almost ubiquitous policy option in the range of accountability mechanisms for human rights violations. In East Timor, the Commission for Reception, Truth and Reconciliation (CAVR) is only one of multiple processes to deal with human rights violations of a past regime. It co-exists with criminal trials conducted by the Serious Crimes Panel, and an ad hoc Human Rights Court established by Indonesia. The CAVR, established by a United Nations Transitional Administration in East Timor (UNTAET) Regulation, is an independent state-sanctioned entity whose objective is ‘to promote national reconciliation and healing following the years of political conflict in East Timor, in particular, following the atrocities committed in 1999’ by ‘establishing the truth regarding the commission of human rights violations’. This chapter examines the CAVR, and identifies some of the potential areas of tension which it faces, particularly in its function as an accountability mechanism for human rights violations.Less
Truth commissions have become an almost ubiquitous policy option in the range of accountability mechanisms for human rights violations. In East Timor, the Commission for Reception, Truth and Reconciliation (CAVR) is only one of multiple processes to deal with human rights violations of a past regime. It co-exists with criminal trials conducted by the Serious Crimes Panel, and an ad hoc Human Rights Court established by Indonesia. The CAVR, established by a United Nations Transitional Administration in East Timor (UNTAET) Regulation, is an independent state-sanctioned entity whose objective is ‘to promote national reconciliation and healing following the years of political conflict in East Timor, in particular, following the atrocities committed in 1999’ by ‘establishing the truth regarding the commission of human rights violations’. This chapter examines the CAVR, and identifies some of the potential areas of tension which it faces, particularly in its function as an accountability mechanism for human rights violations.
Judith Renner
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- September 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780719088025
- eISBN:
- 9781781705872
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Manchester University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7228/manchester/9780719088025.001.0001
- Subject:
- Political Science, International Relations and Politics
This book offers a new and critical perspective on the global reconciliation technology by highlighting its contingent and highly political character as an authoritative practice of post-conflict ...
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This book offers a new and critical perspective on the global reconciliation technology by highlighting its contingent and highly political character as an authoritative practice of post-conflict peacebuilding. After retracing the emergence of the reconciliation discourse from South Africa to the global level, the book demonstrates how implementing reconciliation in post-conflict societies is a highly political practice which entails potentially undesirable consequences for the post-conflict societies to which it is deployed. Inquiring into the example of Sierra Leone, the book shows how the reconciliation discourse brings about the marginalization and neutralization of political claims and identities of local populations by producing these societies as being composed of the ‘victims’ and ‘perpetrators’ of past human rights violations which are first and foremost in need of reconciliation and healing.Less
This book offers a new and critical perspective on the global reconciliation technology by highlighting its contingent and highly political character as an authoritative practice of post-conflict peacebuilding. After retracing the emergence of the reconciliation discourse from South Africa to the global level, the book demonstrates how implementing reconciliation in post-conflict societies is a highly political practice which entails potentially undesirable consequences for the post-conflict societies to which it is deployed. Inquiring into the example of Sierra Leone, the book shows how the reconciliation discourse brings about the marginalization and neutralization of political claims and identities of local populations by producing these societies as being composed of the ‘victims’ and ‘perpetrators’ of past human rights violations which are first and foremost in need of reconciliation and healing.
Kirk Simpson
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- July 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780719078620
- eISBN:
- 9781781703045
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Manchester University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7228/manchester/9780719078620.003.0003
- Subject:
- Political Science, Political Theory
This chapter features an analysis of the flaws of truth commissions based on a detailed theoretical examination of the contested notions of ‘truth’, and the moral and political justification for the ...
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This chapter features an analysis of the flaws of truth commissions based on a detailed theoretical examination of the contested notions of ‘truth’, and the moral and political justification for the creation and implementation of the machinery of state-sponsored historical enquiry, in order that instructive lessons for critically interpreting the past in Northern Ireland might be learned. It also seeks to outline the ways in which ostensibly ‘objective’ legal discourse has colonised the truth and justice project in transitional societies. This supposedly impartial template is in some cases the product of subjective and calculated political reflection, and it has often been imposed and used in a cynical fashion by governments and policymakers to obscure the ways in which post-violence partisan political dynamics manipulate and distort the possibilities for the recovery of inclusive and diverse truth.Less
This chapter features an analysis of the flaws of truth commissions based on a detailed theoretical examination of the contested notions of ‘truth’, and the moral and political justification for the creation and implementation of the machinery of state-sponsored historical enquiry, in order that instructive lessons for critically interpreting the past in Northern Ireland might be learned. It also seeks to outline the ways in which ostensibly ‘objective’ legal discourse has colonised the truth and justice project in transitional societies. This supposedly impartial template is in some cases the product of subjective and calculated political reflection, and it has often been imposed and used in a cynical fashion by governments and policymakers to obscure the ways in which post-violence partisan political dynamics manipulate and distort the possibilities for the recovery of inclusive and diverse truth.
