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 ...

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.

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.

State Crimes of Previous Regimes: Knowledge, Accountability, and the Policing of the Past

1995 ◽  
Vol 20 (01) ◽  
pp. 7-50 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stanley Cohen
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Human Rights ◽  
Latin America ◽  
Social Control ◽  
Criminal Law ◽  
Human Rights Violations ◽  
Social Reconstruction ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Subject

The policy of lustration is set in the context of responses to abuses of power by previous regimes. Using examples from three recent forms of social reconstruction (in Latin America, the former communist states, and South Africa), the author reviews the “justice in transition” debate. How do societies going through democratization confront the human rights violations committed by the previous regime? Five aspects of this debate are reviewed: (1) truth: establishing and confronting the knowledge of what happened in the past; (2) justice: making offenders accountable for their past violations through three possible methods: punishment through the criminal law, compensation and restitution, and mass disqualification such as lustration; (3) impunity: giving amnesty to previous offenders; (4) expiation; and (5) reconciliation and reconstruction. A concluding discussion raises the implications of the subject for the study of time and social control.

scholarly journals A missing link in the Traditional Courts Bill 2017: Evidence obtained through human rights violations

2018 ◽  
pp. 23-31
Author(s):  
Robert Doya Nanima
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Human Rights ◽  
Criminal Justice ◽  
Criminal Justice System ◽  
Justice System ◽  
The State ◽  
Human Rights Violations ◽  
Criminal Cases ◽  
Protection Of Human Rights ◽  
The Republic

The issue of admission of evidence obtained through human rights violations is central to a criminal justice system as a mechanism through which to prevent overzealous prosecution by the state and ensure protection of human rights. As such, any court that deals with criminal cases has to evaluate evidence before it is admitted. This article argues that the Traditional Courts Bill (TCB)1 does not provide for a mode of dealing with evidence obtained as a result of human rights violations. To substantiate this argument, the article reviews the current Bill, and reflects on the challenges that arise with regard to evidence obtained in this way. The article contextualises section 35(5) of the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa, and discusses the practical difficulties of applying it under the current Bill. The article concludes with recommendations for measures that can ensure that accused persons are not prejudiced when appearing before the court.

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 From special powers to legislating the lockdown: the Health Protection (Coronavirus, Restrictions) Regulations (Northern Ireland) 2020

2021 ◽  
Vol 72 (S1) ◽  
pp. 37-61
Author(s):  
Daniel Holder
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Northern Ireland ◽  
Health Protection ◽  
Care Homes ◽  
European Convention ◽  
Legal Certainty ◽  
Police Service ◽  
Frontline Workers ◽  
The Past ◽  
Accessible Information

The Health Protection (Coronavirus, Restrictions) Regulations (Northern Ireland) 2020 were made through temporarily inserted provisions by Westminster’s vast and rushed Coronavirus Act 2020. This itself limits duties to notify deaths to the coroner, despite Article 2 European Convention on Human Rights duties being particularly relevant to deaths in care homes and of frontline workers. The regularly amended March 2020 Northern Ireland regulations have themselves raised ‘legal certainty’ issues. Until June, official websites carried no accessible information as to their scope. Initial concerns on lack of clarity over matters such as driving for exercise gave way to greater controversy regarding the application of the regulations to the Black Lives Matter protests on 6 June 2020 through Police Service of Northern Ireland powers that had only been extended through an eleventh hour amendment the night before. The enforcement powers themselves are so widely drafted that they are reminiscent of the Special Powers Acts of the past. These issues are explored in this article.

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.

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