Partnerships between truth commissions and universities: Possibilities for developing an archival education in human rights in Brazil

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-14
Author(s):  
Mônica Tenaglia ◽  
Georgete Medleg Rodrigues
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Truth Commissions ◽  
Archival Science ◽  
Archival Education ◽  
Doctoral Research ◽  
Educational Engagement ◽  
Limited Partnerships

As part of a doctoral research, eighty-eight local truth commissions created in Brazil between 2012 and 2018 were identified. Among them, it was selected the eleven final reports that described partnerships between truth commissions and universities. The paper analyzes the phenomenon of creation of local truth commissions in Brazil and the partnerships established between them and universities, especially, with Archival Science and History programs. It was found that the partnerships were established to make the work of truth commissions feasible and consisted of archival activities such as preservation, description, and scanning as well as research. It concludes that, although the educational engagement of Brazilian truth commissions has been limited, partnerships with universities have provided students the contact with the theme of human rights, in line with the callings for the profession to address activism and human rights within the context of archival education. Finally, the paper suggests that experiences developed by these partnerships could be incorporated into Archival Science programs in Brazil.

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.

Accountability

2020 ◽  
pp. 258-286
Author(s):  
Aryeh Neier
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Sub Saharan Africa ◽  
Truth Commissions ◽  
International Human Rights ◽  
Human Rights Abuses ◽  
International Criminal Tribunals ◽  
Military Regimes ◽  
Human Rights Movement ◽  
International Human ◽  
Sub Saharan

This chapter focuses on the major goal of the international human rights movement has been in securing accountability for grave abuses. It talks about “truth commissions” in Latin America, sub-Saharan Africa, several countries of Asia, Morocco, and Canada, which deals with abuses against the country's indigenous population. It also highlights the establishment of several international criminal tribunals in order to prosecute and punish those accused of war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide. The chapter explores accountability, which has become a central concern of the international human rights movement for the recognition or official acknowledgment of the suffering of victims of human rights abuses. It also analyzes the purpose of deniability, which made it possible for military regimes in that commit abuses to maintain a facadeof legality.

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.

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.

When Truth Commissions Improve Human Rights

2010 ◽  
Vol 4 (3) ◽  
pp. 457-476 ◽  
Author(s):  
T. D. Olsen ◽  
L. A. Payne ◽  
A. G. Reiter ◽  
E. Wiebelhaus-Brahm
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Truth Commissions

scholarly journals Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls National Inquiry:

2021 ◽  
Vol 31 ◽  
pp. 1-37
Author(s):  
Diana L. Wegner ◽  
Stephanie Lawless
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Social Change ◽  
Transitional Justice ◽  
Legal Framework ◽  
Indigenous Women ◽  
Truth Commissions ◽  
Traditional Media ◽  
Rhetorical Genre ◽  
Women And Girls ◽  
Advisory Role

In this paper we present a rhetorical genre analysis of the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls (MMIWG) National Inquiry. We focus on the concepts of meta-genre and genre hybridity in the context of social change to explore the dynamics of the MMIWG Inquiry as an instantiation of the “truth commission” (TC). Following Giltrow (2002), we treat meta-genre as advice and criticism from genre participants about how a genre should be performed. We apply Gready’s analysis (2011) of the TC as a hybrid genre that has emerged in the context of transitional justice and post-modern governance: the hybrid incorporates three sub-genres: the state (public/national) inquiry, the human rights report, and the official history (rewritten and archived). Our goals are to examine what the concepts of meta-genre and genre hybridity offer to help explain the difficulties of national inquiries/truth commissions in general, and specifically to help illuminate the problematics of the MMIWG Inquiry. Our qualitative analysis focuses on public and media metageneric commentary on the MMIWG Inquiry, including the Commissioners’ responses, in both mainstream traditional media and social media. Our findings show that meta-generic commentary on the MMIWG Inquiry falls into five main categories or themes, each deriving from stakeholders’ expectations raised by the tributary genres.  By far, the most dominant theme is criticism of the Inquiry for its recolonizing legal framework: the ideology of colonialism that inhabits the TC’s state inquiry tributary genre is the object of significant meta-generic criticism. The other four recurrent themes are the perception that the Inquiry should be a criminal investigation, criticism of the Inquiry for its restriction to an “advisory” role only, calls for the inquiry to have a human rights framework, and the expectation that the inquiry is to facilitate meaningful reconciliation. We suggest that, as a recurring and constitutive feature of genre, and, as an arena of negotiation over how genre is to be performed, meta-genre can function as a kind of oversight and challenge that, as an index of social change, inhabits genre as a response to its own inertia. We also suggest that the TC genre creates genre confusion through its conflation of the widely divergent and broad exigences of its tributary genres. We conclude that, at the time of this writing, stakeholders’ diverse expectations, the TC’s problematic hybridity, and the MMIWG Inquiry’s colonizing, statist, legal framework constrain the impetus for change, rendering the Inquiry “truth-lite” (Gready, p. 50) and low impact, and affording only “thin reconciliation”.      

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 ...

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