Diagnose: Versöhnung, unvollendet

2014 ◽  
Vol 74 (5) ◽  
pp. 349-363
Author(s):  
Stefan Engert
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
West Germany ◽  
Truth Commissions ◽  
Human Rights Violations ◽  
Eastern Germany ◽  
The Past ◽  
Perpetrators And Victims

Abstract How did the united Germany address the human rights violations of the communist dictatorship in Eastern Germany? This question is particularly intriguing as the process of accounting for the past was interrupted and postponed by the reunification with West-Germany. In spite of having made use of tribunals, lustrations, truth-commissions and reparations, two important reconciliation tools - political apologies and amnesties - have not been used during that time. As a consequence, the reconciliation of the former perpetrators and victims has remained incomplete.

scholarly journals Burying the Past

2003 ◽  
Vol 20 (1) ◽  
pp. 128-130
Author(s):  
John Boye Ejobowah
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Human Rights ◽  
Criminal Justice ◽  
Northern Ireland ◽  
International Institutions ◽  
Civil Conflict ◽  
Truth Commissions ◽  
Human Rights Violations ◽  
The Past

How should societies that have transitioned from authoritarian to democraticrule deal with the atrocities and gross human rights violations of theirimmediate past? Should those implicated in the crimes of past regimes beprosecuted? This sophisticated volume attempts to address such questions.About one-third of the book is comprised of well-reasoned theoreticalchapters that answer the above questions by creating a space in liberal justicefor forgiveness. The remainder consists of empirical contributions thatdescribe the ways in which international institutions and five countries(Chile, Guatemala, South Africa, Rwanda, and Northern Ireland) haveresponded to such crimes. Unlike the theoretical section, most contributionshere argue that while memory and forgiveness (the truth commissions) areimportant, they are not enough to meet the victims’ psychological needsand do not guarantee non-repetition. The introduction rightly acknowledgesthat some of the chapters argue in different directions.Doing justice in the aftermath of civil conflict is a thorny problem. In liberalism,criminal justice always has been straightforward: the courts, themouthpiece of objective law, have to mediate and impose punishment if theperpetrator is proven guilty. Punishment must consist of penalties that annulthe advantages seized by the criminal, compensate the victim in the case of ...

scholarly journals Truth as Justice: Investigatory Commissions in Latin America

1995 ◽  
Vol 20 (01) ◽  
pp. 79-116 ◽  
Author(s):  
Margaret Popkin ◽  
Naomi Roht-Arriaza
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Latin America ◽  
Latin American ◽  
Truth Commissions ◽  
The Political ◽  
Human Rights Violations ◽  
The Past ◽  
National Human ◽  
To Come ◽  
Latin American Countries

In recent years, Latin American countries have sought to come to terms with prior periods of widespread human rights violations, relying increasingly on investigatory commissions. Investigatory efforts have been undertaken by democratically elected governments that replaced military dictatorships, by UN-sponsored commissions as part of a UN-mediated peace process, and by national human rights commissioners. This article examines truth commissions in Chile and El Salvador, an investigatory effort in Honduras, and a proposed commission in Guatemala. It compares the achievements and limitations of these commissions within the political constraints and institutional reality of each country, focusing on four major goals: the effort to create an authoritative account of the past; vindication of victims; recommendations for legislative, structural, or other changes to avoid repetition of past abuses; and establishing accountability or the identity of perpetrators.

Justice, Acknowledgment, and Collective Memory

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrew Valls
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Human Rights ◽  
Collective Memory ◽  
The United States ◽  
Truth Commissions ◽  
Place Names ◽  
The Past ◽  
Regime Transitions

In regime transitions, a number of mechanisms are utilized to memorialize the past and to reject the ideas associated with human rights abused of the prior regime. This is often done through truth commissions, apologies, memorials, museums, changes in place names, national holidays, and other symbolic measures. In the United States, some efforts along these lines have been undertaken, but on the whole they have been very limited and inadequate. In addition, many symbols and memorials associated with the past, such as Confederate monuments and the Confederate Battle Flag, continue to be displayed. Hence while some progress has been made on these issues, much more needs to be done.

Are human rights archives accessible? Challenges and possible solutions to improve access for Dealing with the Past initiatives

Comma ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 2020 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 139-150
Author(s):  
Romain Ledauphin ◽  
Claudia Josi ◽  
Rahel Siegrist
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Truth Commissions ◽  
Records Management ◽  
Maturity Model ◽  
Humanitarian Law ◽  
The Past ◽  
Governmental Organizations ◽  
Non Governmental Organizations ◽  
Federal Department ◽  
Definition Of

Records and archives containing information relating to grave violations of human rights and international humanitarian law represent a fundamental source for, and can become trustworthy documentary evidence within, Dealing with the Past (DWP) processes including truth commissions, criminal tribunals, reparation programs, vetting processes and outreach projects. Those intergovernmental organizations (IGOs) and international non-governmental organizations (INGOs) working in the fields of human rights and peace and security are themselves important observers and actors in DWP processes and hence their records and archives are highly relevant to DWP initiatives. Such organizations should therefore be transparent and be able to facilitate DWP processes by granting access to their records. Given the International Council on Archives’ definition of “access” as relating to “… the availability of records for consultation as a result both of legal authorization and the existence of finding aids”, and the experience of swisspeace in advising DWP initiatives on collecting evidence and improving records management capacity, swisspeace together with the Swiss Federal Department of Foreign Affairs developed a roadmap which centres on the development of an “archives accessibility maturity model”. This tool will not only improve hands-on access in practice, but will ultimately improve knowledge about the multi-layered complexity of archives’ accessibility, strengthening the capacity of IGOs, INGOs and DWP initiatives to design and implement their access regulations, and thereby improving DWP initiatives’ ability to make successful access requests.

scholarly journals Os acervos documentais produzidos pelas comissões da verdade no Brasil onde estão hoje?

2021 ◽  
Vol 16 ◽  
pp. 203-217
Author(s):  
Mônica Tenaglia ◽  
Georgete Medleg Rodrigues
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Information Service ◽  
Truth Commissions ◽  
Truth Commission ◽  
Human Rights Violations ◽  
Lack Of Information ◽  
Do So

This paper provides the work of identifying and locating the archives produced by twenty truth commissions created in Brazil between 2012 and 2018. To do so, it uses the final reports and virtual pages of the commissions, the electronic citizen information service (e-SIC) and state and municipal ombudsmen and contact with former truth commission members. The results show the difficulty in locating these collections due to the lack of information about Brazilian truth commissions and the lack of information about the presence of these collections in archival institutions. Furthermore, it points to a worrying scenario regarding the protection and disclosure of archival collections which hold information about human rights violations in Brazil.

Transition, ‘Never Again’ and ‘Moving On’

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kevin Hearty
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Northern Ireland ◽  
Transitional Justice ◽  
Human Rights Violations ◽  
Master Narrative ◽  
The Past ◽  
The North ◽  
Irish Republicanism ◽  
Difficult Issue ◽  
Subsequent Replacement

Viewing Irish republican policing memory primarily through a transitional justice lens, this chapter critically examines how Irish republicans, as a principal party to the conflict, approach the difficult issue of ‘dealing with the past’ as both collective victims and perpetrators of human rights violations during the conflict. It will interrogate the range of divergent views within modern Irish republicanism on issues such as victimhood, truth recovery, ‘moving on’ and ‘dealing with the past’. In particular, it looks at how the memory of human rights violations framed the wider policing debate and led to a master narrative of ‘never again’ whereby the value of ‘remembering’ past abuses lay in helping to prevent future repetition. This is placed against a more general backdrop of the stop-start ‘dealing with the past’ process in the North of Ireland that has included the establishment, operation and subsequent replacement of the Historical Enquiries Team (HET), the passage of the Civil Service (Special Advisers) Act (Northern Ireland), and proposals like the Haass/O’Sullivan document and the Stormont House Agreement.

The Experience of Volunteers and Frontline Workers in Marginalized Communities Across Southeast Asia

2019 ◽  
pp. 93-111
Author(s):  
Chuah Siew Mooi ◽  
Ann Nicole Nunis
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Southeast Asia ◽  
Human Rights Violations ◽  
Marginalized Communities ◽  
Frontline Workers ◽  
The Past ◽  
Stigma And Discrimination ◽  
Hiv Aids

This chapter focuses on the experience of volunteers and frontline workers who serve in marginalized communities across Southeast Asia. More frontline workers and volunteers are taking the initiative to support marginalized communities in the region. With the rise of human rights violations towards marginalized communities in the past decade, frontline workers and volunteers face unique experiences in working with these communities, ranging from stigma and discrimination to unaddressed levels of burnout. Based on the authors' experiences working with these communities and the summary of the interviews with fellow frontline workers, the experience of working with marginalized communities, particularly those affected by HIV/AIDS and refugees, are elaborated in this chapter. Current challenges as well as recommendations are highlighted to ensure that the frontline workers and volunteers are supported throughout their vital work towards society.

Witnessing the Ruins of Apartheid

Matatu ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 50 (1) ◽  
pp. 60-80
Author(s):  
Marie Kruger
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Human Rights Violations ◽  
Prison Staff ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Future ◽  
Former Inmates

AbstractConstitution Hill, a unique and hybrid memorial site in the centre of Johannesburg, commemorates the violence of apartheid in the city’s infamous prison complex. Based on a series of workshops with former inmates and prison staff, the permanent exhibitions emphasize the importance of personal objects and testimonials for understanding the human rights violations of the past and their significance for the present and the future. In response to Yvonne Owuor’s appeal to remember the vulnerability of those human bodies who no one “[has] bothered to mention, to mourn”, my article attempts to map a new path towards responsible forms of spectatorship as we walk through the former Women’s Jail and listen to the witness accounts of Deborah Matshoba and Nolundi Ntamo.

Measuring the impact of punishment and forgiveness: a framework for evaluating transitional justice

2006 ◽  
Vol 88 (861) ◽  
pp. 19-47 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pierre Hazan
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Cold War ◽  
Transitional Justice ◽  
International Criminal ◽  
International Community ◽  
Truth Commissions ◽  
Human Rights Violations ◽  
Post Cold War ◽  
International Criminal Tribunals ◽  
The Impact

Truth commissions, international criminal tribunals, reparations, public apologies and other mechanisms of transitional justice are the new mantras of the post-cold-war era. Their purpose is to foster reconciliation in societies that have experienced widespread human-rights violations and to promote reform and democracy, the ultimate aim being to defuse tension. But to what degree are these mechanisms, which are financially and politically supported by the international community and NGOs, truly effective? Very little, in fact, is known about their impact. By examining the underlying hypotheses and workings of transitional justice and proposing a series of indicators to evaluate its results, this article helps to fill the gap.

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