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The new miniseries of the Justice Visions podcast focuses on the current debates and discussions surrounding memory and memorialization. In this third episode of the miniseries, we shed a light on memorialization and documentation efforts in Afghanistan, and reflect on the merits of arts-based approaches, as well as the challenges posed by such approaches.
Sophia Bijleveld Milosevic is a member of AHRDO, an Afghan human rights organization that uses a transformative, victim-oriented approach. Their work aims to document human rights violations for judicial purposes while also telling victims' stories in a way that reflects their lived experiences, among others via art-based approaches. Through the Memory Box initiative, AHRDO collected over 15.000 personal items of war victims, creating a space for individual and collective memorialization in Afghanistan. "We felt it was important to continue to share these testimonies and to continue to advocate for victims", states Sophia. "In the Afghan context, memorialization can be considered as a form of symbolic reparation and a way of acknowledging the stories of the victims." To leverage their expertise in documentation, and launch an online platform, AHRDO partnered with HURIDOCS.
HURIDOCS is an organization specializing in archival and documentation practices in the domain of human Rights. Its documentalist, Bono Olgado talks about how the victim-centred and arts-based practices of AHRDO challenged his organization to revisit its existing archival practice, and how memory and memorialization are understood. "When we are talking about creating a platform or a database that would reflect these art-based approaches, then we would need a different form of expertise, which is quite challenging because we're technically creating counter-epistemologies to existing practises of documentation." Initiatives such as the Memory Box and art-based methodologies, Bono stresses, reconfigure our understanding of documentation and data. "The challenge is to design technologies that actually support this new set of methodologies as opposed to flattening them." -
The new miniseries of the Justice Visions podcast focuses on the current debates and discussions surrounding memory and memorialization. In this second episode of these miniseries, we shed a light on memorialization efforts through embroidery practices in Shatila camp in Beirut. Since the increasing repression by the Assad regime and the war in Syria, there has been a large influx of refugees into Shatila, originally a Palestinian refugee camp.
Our colleague Sofie Verclyte recently defended her PhD project âMigrating heritageâ, and developed a co-creative project with women in Shatila. In that project, she explored the role of embroidery practices in the context of conflict and displacement. Tine De Strooper and Brigitte Herremans spoke to Sofie about the practice of embroidery, and how it has been used in the Syrian context, as a way to remember, and an important element in the broader struggle for justice.
While embroidery might not seem directly reconcilable with a struggle for justice, it has a long history of narrating lived experiences. There are many instances where practitioners use their skill to remember and transmit lived experiences of harm. As Sofie highlights: âthis is also the case in Shatila, where embroidery, rooted in the regionâs rich textile tradition, plays a central role in the lives of makers, typically women.â Traditionally, these women often passed down their craft through intergenerational mentorship, often as a form of storytelling. As such, embroidery is a way to transmit knowledge, to express lived experiences, and therefore also a way to preserve memories and to prevent forgetting.
As Boushra, one of the artists with whom Sofie worked states: âFor me, embroidery is a revival of memory. It prevents me from forgetting the experiences I went through, such as war, displacement and being a refugee. Often experiences are harsh, whether due to war, displacement, or life circumstances.â Boushra emphasizes that she sees embroidery as aform of communication, a language for sharing experiences. This perspective highlights the significance of nonverbal practices in capturing and conveying experiences of harm.
In a context where formal memorialization initiatives are absent because of the ongoing injustices and the context of the entrenched non-transition, informal memorialization efforts can be seen as a way to express, share, and resist memories of injustice. These private practices preserve unarchived and previously unrecorded memories, but also, and often simultaneously, they make it possible to imagine a more just future.
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The latest miniseries of the Justice Visions podcast focuses on the current debates and discussions surrounding memorialization as the fifth pillar of transitional justice. The miniseries foreground innovative grassroots memorialization efforts from a wide array of contexts dealing with impunity, revisionism and lack of political will. This episode focuses on the vibrant memorialization landscape in Guatemala and El Salvador where victims-survivors and civil society organizations are actively constructing memory and dignifying the victims after mass atrocity.
In this episode, Prof. Tine Destrooper brings into conversation Gretel MejĂa Bonifazi and Prof. Amanda Grzyb, about working together with victims-survivors to undertake memorialization efforts in Guatemala and El Salvador respectively. Amanda discusses the Surviving Memory in Postwar El Salvador project, which involves a participative methodology that involves documentation, research and commemoration initiatives that âreject an extractive model of research and focus instead on public facing projects⊠and that aim to recognize how community-based research and co-creation can count as researchâ.
In the same vein, Gretel talks about the new research project that focuses on memorialization from below in the Ixil region. Gretel and Prof. Destrooper will work with Ixil survivors and grassroots actors who are currently mobilizing to create a Museum of Memory. The museum aims to both commemorate the victims of the genocide and to recover the cultural heritage of the Maya Ixil. In line with a participative and collaborative approach, the project looks at working with âvictims-survivors according to their needs and worldviews, and to contribute to their ongoing memorialization effortsâ.
According to local actors and partners, engaging in bottom-up memory collaborations holds great importance. For Felipe Tobar, a Salvadoran survivor and local founder of the Surviving Memory project, the significance of the project lies in âfacilitating and strengthening the organization of all the survivors and relativesâ who are now more involved in the different initiatives. It has allowed the communities to have access to âhealth programs and psychosocial attention for the first time, which has helped them to heal the woundsâ and work for the non-repetition of human rights violations.
Guests:
Prof. Amanda F. Grzyb, is Professor of Information and Media Studies at Western University, where her primary teaching and research interests include state violence, genocide studies, social movements, and memory studies. Her edited books, articles, book chapters, public reports, and research-creation projects focus on Central America, Nazi-occupied Europe, Rwanda, and Sudan. Dr. Grzyb currently serves as the project director for Surviving Memory in Postwar El Salvador (a SSHRC and CFI-funded community-based research partnership committed to documenting the history of the Salvadoran Civil War and preventing future violence.
Felipe Tobar is a survivor of the Sumpul Massacre and the El Alto Massacre. During the war, 18 members of his family were murdered. Throughout the war, he was displaced with his family, fleeing in the mountains and suffering the inclement weather, hunger, diseases and the persecution of the repressive forces of the government until the signing of the Peace Agreements in 1992. Don Felipe is the President of the Board of Directors of Asociación Sumpul,.an organization of massacre survivors in Chalatenango, and former mayor of San José Las Flores, Chalatenango, El Salvador. Felipe is one of the founders of the Surviving Memory project and a key collaborator on many sub-projects, such as the memorial at Las Aradas, the massacres map, workshops, testimonies, amongst other projects.
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Between 1956 and 2011, Tunisia endured decades of authoritarian rule under Presidents Habib Bourguiba and Zine El Abidine Ben Ali. The Tunisian Revolution in 2011 led to the ousting of Ben Ali and catalysed the start of the institutional transitional justice process. Yet, mobilisation against authoritarian rule and the curtailment of basic freedoms also predated the establishment of this formal process.
In this episode, our guests Houcine Bouchiba, Hamza Ben Nasr and Leila Bejaoui discuss how the participation and activism of victims, supported by victimsâ organisations and civil society, profoundly shaped the transitional justice process in Tunisia. Survivors and activists have played a pivotal role in pushing for accountability, supporting truth-seeking, and advocating for reform â despite facing numerous obstacles and waning public and political will.
Houcine, Hamza and Leila speak to the realizations and setbacks of the Truth and Dignity Commission (IVD) and the Specialized Criminal Chambers, whilst illustrating the importance of foregrounding gendered harms and socio-economic demands (for employment, and livelihoods) in the Tunisian context.
At the same time, the events of July 2021 have caused widespread concern about the countryâs transitional justice trajectory. This also prompted our guests to reflect on how the current reality affects victimsâ experiences and trajectories, and how it pushes victimsâ organisations and civil society to reorganize in order to revitalize justice efforts and resist autocratization.
This episode was realized in collaboration with Avocats Sans FrontiĂšres (Lawyers Without Borders), Tunis branch.
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The new season of the Justice Visions podcast focuses on issues surrounding victim participation, mobilization and resistance. It focuses on debates that will also be addressed during the upcoming Justice Visions conference, taking place 13-15 March 2024, in Ghent (Belgium) and online. In this episode, we talk about the methodological challenges of doing research on victimsâ lived experiences of participation in and resistance against formal transitional justice processes.
Our studio guest is professor Sanne Weber. Her research focuses on gender-just reparations in rural communities in Colombiaâs Caribbean region, where survivors were engaged in the process of land restitution and collective reparations. In the episode we focus on participation in formal avenues, because, as Sanne argues, thee continue to be of paramount importance for victims: âWhat is really important about the more formal processes is the recognition by the state, because eventually itâs the stateâs responsibility to redress the harm and transform the situation. Even though informal or non-formal spaces are very important and can have very important goal of rebuilding social fabric and recreating trust.â
Yet, while her initial plan was to employ participatory research methods, she soon found that her potential research participants had limited interest in this approach, due to a âparticipation fatigueâ which can be traced back to how the formal transitional justice process was organized. Colombiaâ Victim law is often hailed for promoting innovative forms of victim participation, yet significant challenges have characterized its implementation. As Sanne argues, âParticipation in this process had required a great investment of time and effort, but they werenât seeing the results of their participation.â
This raises important questions for researchers in terms of how to navigate this scepticism regarding participatory methods, the power dynamics surrounding it, and the concrete strategies for foregrounding the voices of people who experienced violence. As Sanne underscores in the podcast, this is a trial and error process: âIt is really a way of trying to overcome obstacles by sharing the power between participants and researchers. This has a long history in Latin America - this approach of combining research with activism and valuing grassroots knowledge.â
This episode on research methods lays the foundation for a next episode which focuses on the actual experience of survivors who participated in formal processes.
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The new episode of Justice Visions takes a distinct approach. In response to the escalating violence in Palestine and Israel following the Hamas attacks on October 7th and Israel's assault on the Gaza Strip, we felt compelled to address these critical issues of justice and accountability. Our focus today are these international crimes occurring in an environment where impunity prevails.
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The new season of the Justice Visions podcast focuses on the issue of victim participation, mobilization and resistance. This dedicated focus aligns with the overarching theme of the Justice Visions conference, taking place in March 2024. Our first episode centers on institutional innovation and its symbiotic relationship with victim participation. This is a dynamic interplay where, on one hand, formal transitional justice mechanisms shape various transitional justice processes with significant implications for victims. On the other, formal mechanisms increasingly engage with victim participation, which is seen as an essential requirement for achieving the goals of transitional justice.
We talk about this interplay between formal and informal avenues and the topic of institutional change with Dr. Brianne McGonigle Leyh, who is affiliated with the Netherlands Institute of Human and Utrechtâs Universityâs School of Law. Brianne has been working extensively on international criminal law, transitional justice and victimsâ rights. Recently, her work zooms in on aparadigmatic cases, examining transitional justice initiatives in the United States. In Brianneâs words, âthere are new ways of using the language of transitional justice, using the language of human rights to advance a cause that meets the needs and concerns of community actors and community members. So, when we see even traditional processes being used to advance justice for historical harms, I think thatâs brilliant.â
Reflecting on her extensive research journey, Brianne talks about the evolution of participatory rights across the pillars of transitional justice. She emphasizes: âI definitely think weâve seen major changes in the past 20, 15, even 10 and 5 years. Participation has become so integral, not just in transitional justice. Actually, even in the broader field of human rights law, participation has become absolutely integral. Thereâs an expression, I believe it was first used in disability rights: âNothing about us without usâ. And weâve seen that phrase really spread to so many different groups and communities that have long fought for these participatory rights.â This âparticipatory turnâ has left an indelible mark on institutional structures and processes established during times of transition.
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In this special episode of the Justice Visions podcast we go back to the core of the Justice Visions research project and explore important evolutions in how we think about the complex notions of victimhood and victim participation within the field of transitional justice.
Together with Cheryl Lawther and Tine Destrooper, we talk how the recent expansion of transitional justice, the diverse range of contexts in which it is implemented, and the growing attention to diverse knowledge approaches, shaped our understanding of these complex concepts in different contexts.
The notion of victimhood itself is central to Cherylâs forthcoming book âBeyond Innocence and Guilt: Constructing Victimhood in Transitional Justiceâ. In this episode, she argues that when weâre thinking about victimhood in transitional justice we need to engage with a much bigger range of thematic issues:
This position also has implication for how we think about victim participation in formal and informal spaces of transitional justice, which is the focus of Tine Destrooperâs work. As she explains in this episode, victim participation in transitional justice can be both a locus and a driver of transformative change, if it is developed in ways that are meaningful for those who experienced harm:
How to organize participation in a meaningful way, however, requires a better understanding of how people who experienced violence navigate and negotiate or reshape or reject participation in transitional justice, how formal spaces shape informal spaces and vice versa, etc. As Tine argues in the podcast, âThere are a lot of relational dynamics related to participation that we need to understand betterâ.
These questions will also be discussed in more detail during the international ERC conference Victims and Transitional Justice: Participation. Mobilisation. Resistance, organised by Justice Visions in Ghent in March 2024.
How is victimhood constructed in relation to, for example, what voices do we hear, and what voices do we not hear? What happens when we perhaps freeze victims and survivors in one particular narrative and treat that one experience in their life as their total identity, their total voice? (âŠ) and what about what about the forms of victimhood that we donât see, or we donât hear?Meaningful participation foregrounds lived experiences and can be a way to facilitate reflexive understandings of rights that underpin various agendas for justice or redress.
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The final episode of the Justice Visions miniseries on the revolutionary potential of transitional justice zooms in on the relationship between protest, artistic practices and transitional justice in South Sudan. This might seem not be the most obvious choice for such a miniseries, as transitional justice is a relatively new concept in the worldâs youngest nation, which has endured decades of violence.
South Sudan gained independence in 2011, following more than 20 years of civil war, and subsequently experienced another civil war from 2013 to 2020. In response to the legacies of these conflicts, both formal and informal transitional justice initiatives have been established. While the peace agreements put forward four transitional justice measures, none of these foreseen measures became operational. In the absence of functioning formal transitional justice mechanisms, the artistic realm has emerged as an incubator for contestation and resistance.
We are exploring the way in which artistic practices further both TJ and protest with Sayra van den Berg. Sayra has recently conducted fieldwork in South Sudan, focusing on contemporary artistic and cultural expressions, notably in the domain of visual arts and music. She describes how several artists share goals with the transitional justice advocacy community, even if they do not self-identify as TJ actors, arguing that,
While I don't necessarily think that there is an intrinsic benefit in adopting the language of transitional justice for these artistic spaces, I do think that there's a very real relational benefit to being a part of this wider transitional justice community that using that language grants access to.
Delving into the vibrant artistic landscape, she describes artsâ potential for innovation in TJ spaces and discussions. Scholars and practitioners can act upon this:
The increasingly critical turn in scholarship around formal mechanisms of transitional justice is a call to action for all of us in this incredibly fluid and evolving field of research, to locate the practice of transitional justice in the spaces where its goals are centralized and not merely within a rather static and narrow set of formal mechanisms.
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The new episode of the Justice Visions podcast is the third episode of a miniseries that looks into the revolutionary potential of transitional justice in current protests, when social movements use it in non-scripted innovative ways. In this episode we examine how US-based activists demanding reparations for slavery and its ongoing legacy, tap into the disruptive potential of transitional justice language and initiatives.
Together with our studio guest, professor Joyce Hope Scott, we reflect on the nature of the current reparations debate in the US, unearthing its long history and global reach, as well as activists reasons for sometimes relying on the rhetoric of transitional justice.
Through a focus on the work of INOSAAR we unpack some of the most pressing public misconceptions about reparations and reparative justice, as well as about the very history of enslavement. As professor Scott argues,
"We see an inseparable connection between the African continent: those who stayed and those who left. [...] Because what we are, is epistemological orphans. So there's a whole effort of research and of reconnection that we do at the level of Indigenous knowledge to broaden the struggle and make it more effective. So the conversation gets much bigger, much more global. And the implication behind this idea of transitional justice is that this is not going to happen again, that there will be healing."
As such, the episode does not only examine what transitional justice can mean for the current struggle for reparations, but also what the innovations, reconceptualizations and new approaches developed as part of this struggle may mean for more mainstream transitional justice.
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The new episode of the Justice Visions podcast is a second episode of a miniseries that looks into the revolutionary potential of transitional justice in current protest. In this episode we examine the wave of recent protests and severe state violence in Peru. We link the aftermath of leftist ex-President Pedro Castilloâs failed coup dâĂ©tat on December 7th 2022 and peopleâs demands to Peruâs former transitional justice process. This was a response to the countryâs violent internal conflict between the 1980s and 2000s and concluded in 2003.
With our two studio guests, Sarah Kerremans and Rocio Silva Santisteban, we unearth a continuum of violence that helps to understand why this is happening today, why indigenous and rural communities find themselves at the centre of the conflict and how this links to Peruâs extractivist economic model and the countryâs many ongoing ecoterritorial conflicts.
During her recent field work in Peru, Sarah witnessed the vitriolic attacks by institutions and mainstream media against indigenous groups: âWhat struck me most was the racist dimension of that endlessly repeated message that they wanted to take over Lima and the attempts to silence critical voices.â Protesters in Peru have been coined as terrorists to delegitimize them and their demands during the current protests, as well as in many conflicts regarding extractivist projects.
RocĂo Silva-Santisteban narrates how the current situation is unprecedented: âIt is a situation that in some way or another shows that there is a great political malaise, a great malaise of the sectors that never before in the country had been represented by one of their own.â She points to the failed transitional justice process: âThese are the same demands for justice, for truth, for memory, for reparation that were not fulfilled 20 years ago.â However, she stills feels inspired by all these people organizing, âdespite the difficulties, despite the harshness of the situation, despite the impunity, despite the fact that the state doesn't care, they take the streets, they mobilize, they make themselves being heard.â
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The new episode of the Justice Visions podcast is a first episode of a miniseries that explores the revolutionary potential of transitional justice. Recently, an evolution can be observed in which grassroots actors are increasingly mobilizing the rhetoric and tools of transitional justice as an element of their protest repertoire. These expressions of transitional justice co-exist with state-centric and standardized transitional justice mechanisms.
The practice mobilizing transitional justice as a tool to further resistance against authoritarianism or exploitation, can in several ways be traced back to the origins transitional justice, which was also rooted in protests against dictatorships. Yet, the dynamics of resistance in transitional justice is largely underexplored in transitional justice scholarship. In this mini-series we will shed a light on some interesting cases, ranging from the Middle East and North Africa, to Latin and North America.
The first episode focuses on the MENA region where protest movements in several countries have used transitional justice tools and concepts for revolutionary purposes, protesting state repression, neo-colonial practices and extractivism. Our first guest is Noha Aboueladab, who is a professor of transitional justice at Georgetown University in Doha. She is specialised in transitional justice in the Middle East and North Africa, and specifically also zooms in her latest research on the nexus between resistance and transitional justice. As Noha highlights, protest is integral to transitional justice: âThe aspirations of transitional justice are by their very nature revolutionary in the sense that transitional justice seeks revolutionary change.â
One of the central questions of our conversation is how adopting this lens of protest is increasingly relevant to transitional justice scholarship and practices, and how it can transform these in ways that bring transitional justice closer to peoples lived experiences of harm. âItâs mostly Western knowledge production that becomes mainstreamedâ, Noha argues. âAnd this is, of course, a problem not just in transitional justice, but in so many other disciplines. But because transitional justice is such a policy heavy field, this limited representation of the intellectual and practical material related to transitional justice is something that ultimately limits the strength of transitional justice policies to address these diversified contexts.â -
In May 2022, Ferdinand ‘Bong Bong’ Marcos, the son of former dictator Ferdinand Marcos won the presidential elections in the Philippines. The vice-presidential elections were won by Sara Duterte, daughter of the former authoritarian president Rodrigo Duterte.
What does the election of the son of a former dictator tell us about the Philippines’ transitional justice process? What to make of the historical revisionism that facilitated this electoral outcome, in light of transitional justice’s concern with truth and memorialization?
The episode highlights that, while many activists and justice actors were initially focusing on the recovering the ill-gotten wealth of the Marcoses, and later on fighting the extra-judicial killings happening as part of Duterte’s violent war-on-drugs, an entire campaign aimed at erasing the violence and crimes perpetrated by the Marcos family from the public discourse was shaping up under the surface.
The interviews underline the impact of this of historical revisionism and the difficulty in combatting it in a context where there was never a widely shared and state-sanctioned historical narrative about the violence and economic crimes perpetrated by the Marcos regime. In the absence of a formal truth commission or institutionalized memorialization efforts, developing a shared understanding of the violence that transpired has been difficult. At the same time, the current campaign of historical revisionism, while commonly being traced to the Marcos family, is mostly being waged on social media platforms in a highly decentralized manner, making it difficult to develop an encompassing strategy to counter it.
Is transitional justice powerless in the face of such a reality, or can innovations and creative approaches adequately respond to this situation and maybe even open up avenues for rethinking truth and memorialization efforts in other transitional justice contexts?
In this episode of Justice Visions, we talk to Ruben Carranza of the International Center for Transitional Justice, and to Chuck Crisanto, of the Philippine Memorial Commission about what to make of this situation if we look at it through the lens of transitional justice. -
The new episode of the Justice Visions podcast is last episode of the miniseries on historical truth-seeking initiatives in the (post-)colonial state. Recently, Europe has experienced a boom of state-led and informal initiatives to address the legacies of the colonial past and its enduring harms in the present. In this episode we zoom out from the particular truth initiatives in European countries, to discuss some of the overarching topics and themes crossing across the episodes of this series.
Our guest is DrâŻOlivia Umurerwa Rutazibwa, an assistant Professor in Human Rights and Politics at the London School of Economics. We talk about the capacities of historical truth-seeking initiatives to contribute to the decolonisation project, accountability, and ultimately contribute to social change. As Olivia highlights, despite the formal decolonisation processes, âthere is a continuity in colonial violence that's embedded in many of our institutionsâ. The change that we should be aspire for is one that tackles the colonial status quo and dismantles colonial power dynamics.
One of the central questions of our conversation is how historical truth can contribute to the decolonial project? Olivia stresses the need to framing historical truth initiatives within a decolonising strategy or approach. This would mean questioning the points of origin assigned to the history we are transmitting; questions of silencing and desilencing. Who gets to speak and who is systematically silenced? The decolonial approach is very much about the explicit in Oliviaâs perspective, âabout the extent to which you see your project either contributing to the status quo or actively be against itâ.
With the increased use of the transitional justice framework to think about historical injustice, Olivia argues that the question is not whether transitional justice âis the right thing or notâ, but rather is about âthe meaning that we give to it and how vigilant we are in how the language and the practises of it contribute to the status quo or notâ.
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The new episode of the Justice Visions podcast expands on historical truth-seeking initiatives in the (post-)colonial state. In this miniseries co-hosted by postdoctoral research fellow Dr. Cira PallĂ-AsperĂł, we look into formal and informal truth initiatives in European countries dealing with settler and overseas colonial legacies. In this episode, we zoom in on Portugal to discuss decolonisation in a context of explicit glorification of the imperial and colonial past. What kind of initiatives have been taken place? Led by who and for which purpose?
Our guest is Dr. Bruno Sena Martins, researcher at the Centre for Social Studies at the University of Coimbra. First and foremost, he stresses, the anti-colonial struggle is not something of the past: âit is a mission for this generation to (âŠ) decolonize the present and to decolonize Europeâ. In Portugal, critical consciousness about the colonial past has only recently been shaping up in the public debate with the establishment of different initiatives led by civil society organisations and by minority groups of people of African descent, with a significant role of academia.
Dr. Bruno Sena Martins talks about what kind of openings and opportunities have been created to address the legacies of the Portuguese colonial past; and how civil society organisations have been advocating to redress issues of inequality, recognition, social, racial, and historical justice. âThis is a movement where different people, different actors claim that it is important to look at the past in a critical perspective. It is important to acknowledge that the colonial violence is still with usâ.
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A new Justice Visions miniseries on historical truth-seeking initiatives in the (post-)colonial state, will look into formal and informal truth initiatives in European countries dealing with settler and overseas colonial legacies. In this miniseries co-hosted by Dr. Cira PallĂ-AsperĂł, we pick up on some of these debates to explore how different actors are engaging in truth-seeking initiatives and what this means for the domain of transitional justice.
In this episode, we talk with Dr. Malin Arvidsson, a commissioner at the Swedish Truth and Reconciliation Commission for Tornedalians, Kvens and Lantalaiset, about a number of state-sanctioned historical truth-seeking initiatives that have taken place in the Scandinavian context. The goal of these commissions was to examine the impact that assimilation policies of the Scandinavian welfare states had on indigenous peoples in those countries.
The colonial past is a corrosive component in the relations between the former colonizing powers and their colonial subjects, particularly over issues of historical responsibility of recognition and redress of colonial injustices. Although the demands to redress historical injustices linked to colonialism are not new; since the Black Lives Matters movement took over the streets in 2020, they have taken a renewed spotlight in the public and political debate.
Within this framework, the transitional justice paradigm is increasingly being used to think about historical injustices, as historical truth-seeking initiatives within the post-colonial context (both formal and informal) are increasingly using the logic and rhetoric of transitional justice; for instance, by systematically referring to its core objectives in their mandates (i.e., truth, accountability, reparation, non-recurrence). But how are these transferred to the post-colonial context? and what are the implications thereof?
As Malin points out, this raises key questions: â(âŠ) if you talk about historical injustices in this long-time perspective, what are even the actors that we are looking at, because for example, the state and the Church of Sweden has an intertwined history.â Awaiting the results of this ongoing process, one of the main contributions foreseen is building a strong archive that is essential for follow up by policy makers, civil society: âwhat will remain is an archive of interviews, research reports (âŠ) that have been commissioned by the commission that can serve as a basis for further advocacy and claims-making.â
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Reparations are a key mechanism to redress violations of international law. They are mostly conceived within state-like frameworks and related to measures administered by states. Yet, violence has increasingly shifted away from states to non-state actors such as armed groups. In a new Justice Visions podcast episode, we talk with Katharine Fortin (Netherlands Institute of Human Rights) and Luke Moffett (Queen's University) about the need to broaden the conversation about engaging armed groups and encouraging them to remedy the harm they have caused.
Currently, around 60 to 80 million people are living under the control of armed groups. In their practices, armed groups are increasingly taking on public âsemi-governmentâ functions, using the law and employing judicial processes. These practices pose new challenges and questions for the International Criminal Court, as Katharine argues: âIs armed group law, law? Are armed group courts, courts?â and if they are, âshould the international community be asking armed groups to investigate if a particular violation has taken place?â Yet, within the human rights framework it is still controversial to engage with armed groups. Can we somehow hold them accountable through the mechanisms they employ, and broaden the conversation about how to deal with the violence and harm they cause?
These are crucial questions, as the existence of armed groups is part of the reality in many post-conflict societies. Using the example of Northern-Ireland, Luke point to the ongoing existence of armed groups, even 25 years after the peace process. In Northern Ireland about 13.000 people, amounting to one out of a hundred adults are currently members of armed groups. Yet, Luke posits that armed actors could also be approached as potential community leaders and peace-builders, with a view to protecting civilians. âIt comes down to how do people act and interact as victims, civil society and armed groups in these situations. Where in transitional justice we are often are looking at post-conflict cases and post-authoritarian governments, in these situations itâs protracted conflict, itâs re-emerging conflicts, fragile societies where there is real insecurity for victims to come out and speak out. How do we better protect and allow people to access some sort of remedy without causing disadvantages for them?â
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The Syrian conflict has underlined some of the weaknesses of the international justice system: the lack of formal justice avenues has left victims of international crimes largely in the cold. Conversely, this stalemate has also led to a transnational justice scene, arising from creative and innovative Syrian and international justice initiatives. This last Syria podcast episode sheds a light on some of the pitfalls and achievements that could inform justice actors in other conflicts.
While local civil societyâs efforts to document crimes and collect evidence are remarkable, Mohammad Al Abdallah, director of the Syria Justice and Accountability Centre (SJAC) is pessimistic about their outcome. Mr. Al Abadallah fears that as long as there are no domestic justice processes, accountability would fail to achieve its goals. Nonetheless, he is adamant about the importance of credible, authentic documentation: âto help justice processes in the future to start on the right footing. The second thing is to take any available interim steps and use them to the extent possible.â
Within this context, the work of the International, Impartial and Independent Mechanism to assist in the investigation and prosecution of persons responsible for the most serious crimes under International Law committed in the Syrian Arab Republic since March 2011 (IIIM), is vital. Its head, Catherine Marchi-Uhel, argues that a two-way communication with Syrian civil society actors is key for this UN entity that acts as a repository and conducts structural investigations into crimes. Ms. Marchi-Uhel interprets the mandate of this justice catalyst âas encompassing support to forms of justice broader than criminal justice. And the search for missing persons is an obvious component of that.â
The rich and stimulating conversations we had through this podcast mini-series on justice efforts for Syria remind us that transitional justice concepts and initiatives cannot work without innovation and creativity. Justice Visions and Impunity Watch hope that these conversations will inspire justice actors in other contexts and encourage them to think outside of the so-called âtoolboxâ.
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Syrian victim and survivor groups have been increasingly active in informal transitional justice processes. They assert their political agency and demonstrate that survivors and victims are the key stakeholders in justice initiatives. This episode zooms in on the origin of victimsâ activism and some main break-throughs.
Victims and their families felt that international efforts were almost nonexistent or failed to meet their demands. Christalla Yakinthou, a scholar of transitional justice at Birmingham university, argues that in response to this stalemate, Syrian victimsâ groups started to emerge around 2016. âIn that dual context of the escalation of violence and the feeling that the international community wasnât going to do anything, there was this emerging sense of what can we do for ourselves?â The moment was ripe for the establishment of groups that assist victims and propose concrete solutions to their justice needs, such as finding out the fate of the disappeared and the missing.
Within this context, in 2021 five victim groups launched the Truth and Justice Charter, in which they set out their short-term and long-term justice perspectives. Yasmen Almashan, of the Caesar Families Association -one of the Charter groups- explains: âjustice paths are usually long. But there are urgent needs and necessities for us as families that must be prioritized. These are an immediate halt to torture, inhuman treatment, and sexual crimes in detention centers and prisons, revealing the fate of the forcibly disappeared, and returning the remains of those killed.â
These efforts have not gone unnoticed internationally. Riyad Avlar of the Association of Detainees and the Missing in Sednaya Prison upholds that victim groups proved to the international community that victims have the potential to propose and lead initiatives that meet their needs. âThe most important issue that we are currently working on as victimsâ groups is a mechanism for missing persons in Syria. The mechanism must be international, this is crucial.â
Even if victim groups managed to create their own spaces for activism and impose their participation, they carry a huge burden on their shoulders. Agency comes with a cost, as Hiba al-Hamed of the Coalition of Families of persons Kidnapped by ISIS explains. âIt is not easy, remembering every time these sad stories, talking about our beloved ones and mentioning personal details.â Their struggle and the realization that the road is long, weighs heavy. âBut our voices at least are heard and nothing is imposed on us,â Hiba argues.
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As a central institution of the Assadâs regimeâs system of governance, the prison is aimed at destroying political subjects in Syria. Mass imprisonment has a devastating impact on Syrian society.
Despite its omnipresence, an overview of this gulag or system of prisons spread all over the country, was lacking so far. Determined to fill that gap, researchers UÄur Ămit Ăngör and Jaber Baker published The Syrian Gulag, Assadâs Prisons, 1970-2020. They looked among others into the intelligence agencies that operate, according to UÄur, like a vacuum cleaner. âThey penetrate into society and extract people from it. Then they process these human beings by subjecting them to violent treatment, to torture and other forms of interrogation, and keep them in these prisons for a while.â As Jaber highlights, this prison system has enormous physical, psychological, social and economic consequences. âThere are hundreds of missing persons in the darkness of this gulag and no one knows anything about them. This breaks up families.â
Imprisonment is a national trauma that has left its traces in the cultural domain, generating a huge body of prison narratives. In her research project SYRASP, Anne-Marie McManus relates the functions of these narratives in the domain of among others literature, cinema and visual arts to different verbs: knowing, remembering and feeling; not only as a form of remembrance but also as political contestation. âI think actually one of the major goals of the prison field today is to articulate a new meaning, or a set of meanings around imprisonment and enforced disappearance.â
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