Author: A. James McAdams
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 344
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Book Description
This is the first focused study on the relationship between the use of national courts to pursue retrospective justice and the construction of viable democracies. Included in this interdisciplinary volume are fascinating, detailed essays on the experiences of eight countries: Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Poland, and South Africa. According to the contributors, the most important lesson for leaders of new democracies, who are wrestling with the human rights abuses of past dictatorships, is that they have many options. Democratizing regimes are well-advised to be attentive to the significant political, ethical, and legal constraints that may limit their ability to achieve retribution for past wrongs. On prudential ground alone, some fledgling regimes will have no choice but to restrain their desire for punishment in the interest of political survival. However, it would be incorrect to think that all new democracies are therefore bereft of the political and legal resources needed to bring the perpetrators of egregious human rights violations to justice. In many instances, governments have overcome the obstacles before them and, by appealing to both national and international legal standards, have brought their former dictators to trial. When these judicial proceedings have been properly conducted and insulated from partisan political pressures, they have provided tangible evidence of the guiding principles-equality, fairness, and the rule of law-that are essential to the post-authoritarian order. This collection shows that the quest for transitional justice has amounted to something more than merely a break with the past--it constitutes a formative act which directly affects the quality and credibility of democratic institutions.
Author: Neil J. Kritz
Publisher: US Institute of Peace Press
ISBN: 9781878379436
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 644
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Book Description
Foreword - Nelson Mandela
Author: Ruti G. Teitel
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 019988224X
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 305
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Book Description
At the century's end, societies all over the world are throwing off the yoke of authoritarian rule and beginning to build democracies. At any such time of radical change, the question arises: should a society punish its ancien regime or let bygones be bygones? Transitional Justice takes this question to a new level with an interdisciplinary approach that challenges the very terms of the contemporary debate. Ruti Teitel explores the recurring dilemma of how regimes should respond to evil rule, arguing against the prevailing view favoring punishment, yet contending that the law nevertheless plays a profound role in periods of radical change. Pursuing a comparative and historical approach, she presents a compelling analysis of constitutional, legislative, and administrative responses to injustice following political upheaval. She proposes a new normative conception of justice--one that is highly politicized--offering glimmerings of the rule of law that, in her view, have become symbols of liberal transition. Its challenge to the prevailing assumptions about transitional periods makes this timely and provocative book essential reading for policymakers and scholars of revolution and new democracies.
Author: Elin Skaar
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317526201
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 353
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Book Description
This book addresses current developments in transitional justice in Latin America – effectively the first region to undergo concentrated transitional justice experiences in modern times. Using a comparative approach, it examines trajectories in truth, justice, reparations, and amnesties in countries emerging from periods of massive violations of human rights and humanitarian law. The book examines the cases of Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Guatemala, El Salvador, Paraguay, Peru and Uruguay, developing and applying a common analytical framework to provide a systematic, qualitative and comparative analysis of their transitional justice experiences. More specifically, the book investigates to what extent there has been a shift from impunity towards accountability for past human rights violations in Latin America. Using ‘thick’, but structured, narratives – which allow patterns to emerge, rather than being imposed – the book assesses how the quality, timing and sequencing of transitional justice mechanisms, along with the context in which they appear, have mattered for the nature and impact of transitional justice processes in the region. Offering a new approach to assessing transitional justice, and challenging many assumptions in the established literature, this book will be of enormous benefit to scholars and others working in this area.
Author: Susanne Buckley-Zistel
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1135055068
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 239
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Book Description
Transitional Justice Theories is the first volume to approach the politically sensitive subject of post-conflict or post-authoritarian justice from a theoretical perspective. It combines contributions from distinguished scholars and practitioners as well as from emerging academics from different disciplines and provides an overview of conceptual approaches to the field. The volume seeks to refine our understanding of transitional justice by exploring often unarticulated assumptions that guide discourse and practice. To this end, it offers a wide selection of approaches from various theoretical traditions ranging from normative theory to critical theory. In their individual chapters, the authors explore the concept of transitional justice itself and its foundations, such as reconciliation, memory, and truth, as well as intersections, such as reparations, peace building, and norm compliance. This book will be of particular interest for scholars and students of law, peace and conflict studies, and human rights studies. Even though highly theoretical, the chapters provide an easy read for a wide audience including readers not familiar with theoretical investigations.
Author: Colleen Murphy
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1108228607
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 233
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Book Description
Many countries have attempted to transition to democracy following conflict or repression, but the basic meaning of transitional justice remains hotly contested. In this book, Colleen Murphy analyses transitional justice - showing how it is distinguished from retributive, corrective, and distributive justice - and outlines the ethical standards which societies attempting to democratize should follow. She argues that transitional justice involves the just pursuit of societal transformation. Such transformation requires political reconciliation, which in turn has a complex set of institutional and interpersonal requirements including the rule of law. She shows how societal transformation is also influenced by the moral claims of victims and the demands of perpetrators, and how justice processes can fail to be just by failing to foster this transformation or by not treating victims and perpetrators fairly. Her book will be accessible and enlightening for philosophers, political and social scientists, policy analysts, and legal and human rights scholars and activists.
Author: Jon Elster
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521548540
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 316
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Book Description
An analysis of transitional justice - retribution and reparation after a change of political regime - from Athens in the fifth century BC to the present. Part I, 'The Universe of Transitional Justice', describes more than thirty transitions, some of them in considerable detail, others more succinctly. Part II, 'The Analytics of Transitional Justice', proposes a framework for explaining the variations among the cases - why after some transitions wrongdoers from the previous regime are punished severely and in other cases mildly or not at all, and victims sometimes compensated generously and sometimes poorly or not at all. After surveying a broad range of justifications and excuses for wrongdoings and criteria for selecting and indemnifying victims, the 2004 book concludes with a discussion of three general explanatory factors: economic and political constraints, the retributive emotions, and the play of party politics.
Author: Pablo De Greiff
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780979077296
Category : Developing countries
Languages : en
Pages : 0
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Book Description
As developing societies emerge from legacies of conflict and authoritarianism, they are frequently beset by poverty, inequality, weak institutions, broken infrastructure, poor governance, insecurity, and low levels of social capital. These countries also tend to propagate massive human rights violations, which displace victims who are marginalized, handicapped, widowed, and orphaned--in other words, people with strong claims to justice. Those who work with others to address development and justice often fail to supply a coherent response to these concerns. The essays in this volume confront the intricacies--and interconnectedness--of transitional governance issues head on, mapping the relationship between two fields that, academically and in practice, have grown largely in isolation of one another. The result of a research project conducted by the International Center for Transitional Justice (ICTJ), this book explains how justice and recovery can be aligned not only in theory but also in practice, among both people and governments as they reform.
Author: Jon Elster
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1107320534
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 323
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Book Description
The contributions in this volume offer a comprehensive analysis of transitional justice from 1945 to the present. They focus on retribution against the leaders and agents of the autocratic regime preceding the democratic transition, and on reparation to its victims. Part I contains general theoretical discussions of retribution and reparation. The essays in Part II survey transitional justice in the wake of World War II, covering Austria, Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Hungary, the Netherlands, and Norway. In Part III, the contributors discuss more recent transitions in Argentina, Chile, Eastern Europe, the former German Democratic Republic, and South Africa, including a chapter on the reparation of injustice in some of these transitions. The editor provides a general introduction, brief introductions to each part, and a conclusion that looks beyond regime transitions to broader issues of rectifying historical injustice.
Author: Cath Collins
Publisher: Penn State Press
ISBN: 0271036877
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 293
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Book Description
"Analyzes how activists, legal strategies, and judicial receptivity to human rights claims are constructing new accountability outcomes for human rights violations in Chile and El Salvador"--Provided by publisher.
