Between 2002 and 2006 the Colombian government of Álvaro Uribe counted with great international support to hand a demobilization process of right-wing paramilitary groups, along with the implementation of transitional justice policies such as penal prosecutions and the creation of a National Commission for Reparation and Reconciliation (NCRR) to address justice, truth and reparation for victims of paramilitary violence. The demobilization process began when in 2002 the United Self Defence Forces of Colombia (Autodefensas Unidas de Colombia, AUC) agreed to participate in a government-sponsored demobilization process. Paramilitary groups were responsible for the vast majority of human rights violations for a period of over 30 years. The government designed a special legal framework that envisaged great leniency for paramilitaries who committed serious crimes and reparations for victims of paramilitary violence. More than 30,000 paramilitaries have demobilized under this process between January 2003 and August 2006. Law 975, also known as the “Justice and Peace Law”, and Decree 128 have served as the legal framework for the demobilization and prosecutions of paramilitaries. It has offered the prospect of reduced sentences to demobilized paramilitaries who committed crimes against humanity in exchange for full confessions of crimes, restitution for illegally obtained assets, the release of child soldiers, the release of kidnapped victims and has also provided reparations for victims of paramilitary violence. The Colombian demobilization process presents an atypical case of transitional justice. Many observers have even questioned whether Colombia can be considered a case of transitional justice. Transitional justice measures are often taken up after the change of an authoritarian regime or at a post-conflict stage. However, the particularity of the Colombian case is that transitional justice policies were introduced while the conflict still raged. In this sense, the Colombian case expresses one of the key elements to be addressed which is the tension between offering incentives to perpetrators to disarm and demobilize to prevent future crimes and providing an adequate response to the human rights violations perpetrated throughout the course of an internal conflict. In particular, disarmament, demobilization and reintegration processes require a fine balance between the immunity guarantees offered to ex-combatants and the sought of accountability for their crimes. International law provides the legal framework defining the rights to justice, truth and reparations for victims and the corresponding obligations of the State, but the peace negotiations and conflicted political structures do not always allow for the fulfillment of those rights. Thus, the aim of this article is to analyze what kind of transition may be occurring in Colombia by focusing on the role that transitional justice mechanisms may play in political negotiations between the Colombian government and paramilitary groups. In particular, it seeks to address to what extent such processes contribute to or hinder the achievement of the balance between peacebuilding and accountability, and thus facilitate a real transitional process. / Zwischen 2002 und 2006 hat die kolumbianische Regierung von Álvaro Uribe einen Demobilisierungsprozess von paramilitärischen Gruppen und der Implementierung von Transitional Justice-Mechanismen durchgeführt als einem politischen Versuch, Frieden in Kolumbien durchzusetzen. Der Demobilisierungsprozess wurde durch einen sondergesetzlichen Rahmen geregelt: durch das Gesetz 782, das Dekret 128 und das Gesetz 975. Insbesondere das Gesetz 975 aus dem Jahr 2005, auch bekannt als das „Gesetz für Gerechtigkeit und Frieden“ (Ley de Justicia y Paz), bietet Strafmilderung für angeklagte Mitglieder illegaler Gruppen, die Verbrechen gegen die Menschlichkeit und Mord begangen haben. Um diese Strafmilderung in Anspruch nehmen zu können, sind die angeklagten Ex-Kombattanten im Gegenzug aufgefordert, Informationen über ihre ehemalige Gruppe zu erteilen und illegal angeeignete Güter auszuhändigen. Um den Demobilisierungsprozess im Einklang mit Transitional Justice-Prinzipien umzusetzen, wurden eine Vielzahl von Institutionen eingerichtet: acht Sondergerichtskammern, eine Sondereinheit der Staatsanwaltschaft (Unidad Nacional de Fiscalia para la Justicia y la Paz), ein staatlicher Fonds für Entschädigung (Fondo de Reparación) und eine Nationale Kommission für Wiedergutmachung und Versöhnung (Comisión Nacional de Reparación und Reconciliación). In Kolumbien herrscht seit mehr als 40 Jahren ein bewaffneter Konflikt. Es ist der längste bewaffnete Konflikt in der westlichen Welt. An diesem Konflikt sind der Staat, die rechtsgerichteten Paramilitärs und linksgerichtete Guerillagruppen beteiligt. Bis heute hat der Staat in weiten Teilen des Landes de facto kein Gewaltmonopol über einige Gebiete, die stattdessen von der Guerilla oder den Paramilitärs beherrscht werden. Die paramilitarischen Gruppen sind für die überwiegende Zahl von Menschenrechtsverletzungen seit mehr als 30 Jahren verantwortlich. Als Folge wurden tausende Bauernfamilien von ihrem Land vertrieben. Kolumbien steht mit drei Millionen Binnenvertriebenen nach dem Sudan weltweit an zweiter Stelle. Neben Bauern sind auch andere Gruppen Opfer des Konflikts, vor allem Afro-Kolumbianer, Frauen, Gewerkschaftsfunktionäre, Menschenrechtsverteidiger und Journalisten. Vor diesem Hintergrund ist eine wesentliche Voraussetzungen für einen Übergang von Konflikt- zu Frieden, dass der Staat die Garantie der Nicht-Wiederholung der vorausgegangenen Verbrechen und die Stärkung der demokratischen Bürgerrechte sicherstellt. In diesem Zusammenhang sind Transitional Justice-Instrumente, wie u. a. Strafverfolgungen und Amnestie, Wahrheits- und Versöhnungskommissionen, Wiedergutmachungen und Demobilisierungsprozesse zu sehen, die im Rahmen von Übergangsprozessen eingesetzt werden. Sie verfolgen das Ziel, die Vergangenheit eines gewaltsamen Konfliktes oder Regimes aufzuarbeiten, um so den Übergang zu einer nachhaltig friedlichen demokratischen Gesellschaftsordnung zu ermöglichen. Einerseits wird mit Hilfe von Transitional Justice-Instrumenten versucht, Gerechtigkeit und Entschädigung für die Opfer herzustellen. Andererseits sollen die angeklagten Täter mit Hilfe von Amnestie und Wiedereingliederungsprogrammen in die Gesellschaft reintegriert werden. So steht die Anwendung dieser Instrumente einem Dilemma zwischen Frieden und Gerechtigkeit, Verantwortlichkeit und Straflosigkeit, Strafe und Vergeben gegenüber. Diese Arbeit evaluiert die Umsetzung des Demobilisierungsprozesses, die gerichtlichen Prozesse und die Wiedergutmachungspolitik. Wichtig ist es zu analysieren, ob der Demobilisierungsprozess der paramilitärischen Gruppen einen Übergang von Krieg zu Frieden zum Ergebnis hat. Ein Übergang sollte die Erfüllung der oben erwähnten Bedingungen – Ausübung des legitimen Gewaltmonopols durch den Staat, Garantie der Nicht-Wiederholung von Gewaltverbrechen und die Stärkung von Bürgerrechten – bedeuten.

La tesi s’inicia amb la descripció del fenomen de la justícia transicional, diferenciant-ne la justícia retributiva, la institucional i la justícia transicional reparadora, encarregada d’implementar els mecanismes de reparació de les víctimes de l’anterior règim autoritari. Dins de la justícia transicional reparadora, s’analitzen les diferents mesures de reparació de les víctimes de la Guerra Civil espanyola, que han adoptat els governs democràtics després de la transició espanyola cap a la democràcia. D’entre aquestes mesures, destaca la regulació de pensions vitalícies a favor de mutilats i familiars de morts a la Guerra Civil, el reconeixement de drets a favor dels militars republicans, les ajudes pel temps de privació de llibertat, i la restitució de béns a favor de sindicals i partits polítics il•legalitzats durant el franquisme. També s’estudia l’anomenada Llei de la Memòria Històrica i es proposa una acció judicial en reclamació dels danys patits per la privació de llibertat. / The thesis begins with a description of the phenomenon of transitional justice, exploring the difference between retributive justice, institutional justice (lustrations) and reparative justice, which deals with the implementation of reparations of the victims of the previous authoritarian regime. Within the transitional reparative justice, we analyze different measures of reparation to the victims of the Spanish Civil War taken by the democratic governments after the Spanish transition to democracy. Among these measures, we can observe the regulation of annuities in favor of familiar mutilated and dead in the Civil War, the recognition of rights in favor of republican military, aid for the period of detention, and restitution to favor unions and political parties outlawed under Franco regime. We also study the so-called Law of Historical Memory and we propose legal action to claim for damages suffered by imprisonment.

Testimony flows from a story that originates long before the opportunity to be a witness about human atrocities occurs. And, ironically, testimony – the voice that is suppressed during times of state sanctioned terror – continues to flow long after the perpetrators fade from power. It is this ethereal and enduring paradox that raises the questions of what testimonial forms are, how they communicate, and whether they positively impact social justice as evidenced by enhanced communicative freedoms. The testimonial forms of this study are narratives about human rights atrocities which emerged from the 17-year military junta in Chile led by Augusto Pinochet. This project examines the development and uses of official and unofficial testimony surrounding times of transitional justice using a multi-modal analysis incorporating narrative and historical analysis, communication ethics, and critical theory which yields a meta-analysis of testimony and the context in which it functions. This research concludes that a life cycle of testimony exists that is organic and evolving. Furthermore, due to the unique circumstances of transitional justice periods, a theory of testimony ethics is called for to increase individual communicative freedoms that lead to enhanced social justice as well as to increase the success of truth commission communication processes.

Between 1994 and 2012, the Zapatista Army of National Liberation (EZLN) established a contested zone of exception to neoliberal governance in southern Mexico and women's-rights-as-human-rights universalism reshaped international development and activist discourse. Within this context, Ana, Beatriz, and Celia González Pérez pressed claims against a group of Mexican Federal Army soldiers for rape at a military checkpoint in 1994. A rare instance of first-person denunciation of rape warfare, the Tseltal-Maya sisters' own powerful representation of the physical and procedural violations committed against them forms the starting point of this analysis, which proceeds from there, chapter by chapter, through communal, national, and international representations. Centering the women's speech, then moving to what are conventionally understood as broader fields of discourse produces new ways of understanding violence in relation to nation, culture, and gendered sociality. Though in 2001 the human rights commission of the Organization of American States upheld the women's claims, as of this writing (2012) the Mexican state has neither awarded reparations nor prosecuted the accused. I argue here that the women's unmet demands for collective and individual justice produce a novel language of protest which I call denuncia (denouncement) rather than testimony. Denuncia, I argue, puts the physical and the social body at the center of claims against sexual violation; enacts coraje (courage, rage) rather than petitions for recognition of truth; exposes the nationalist ideology of racial mixing that informs the production of testimony in Mexico, and establishes new audiences for its own reception despite the regimes of everyday violence it foregrounds. Formulated amid military occupation, denuncia exposes the gendered intimacy--control of the food supply, inhabitation of public-private architectural spaces, colonization of local enmities--that gave rise to military rape, which I call here "domestic violence." Denuncia emerges to refute the neoliberal discourse that links indigenous culture, gender, and violence just when the material basis of indigenous livelihood is under siege. This dissertation's method would not have been possible without almost twenty years' engagement with Tseltal and Tojolabal-Maya men and women who have formed part of the Zapatista movement. This long-range perspective has engendered a form of feminist scholarly accountability that cultivates listening to ground critique on the terrain of self-determination. / text

I situate Škvorecký’s novel as both a primary document in the historical record of transitional justice and as a literary creation in the author’s larger oeuvre. In creating this work of autobiographical fiction, Škvorecký deals with the ambiguities of a tumultuous historico-political moment and creates an appropriately complex work of art. I combine social science research with close-reading of the text in the tradition of new historicism. In the introduction I explain the historico-political background, specifically transitional justice and lustration in Czech Republic in the early 1990s, that engendered Two Murders. In my first chapter, I examine the book reviews, Czech and English, that appeared following the two language-respective publications of Two Murders. In the remaining three chapters I present my analysis of the novel based on close-reading and applied historical information. Chapters two and three discuss different but interconnected manifestations of distance. Chapter two examines memory as the temporal distance of the mind, while chapter three explores exile as spatial distance. Škvorecký invests memory and exile with enormous significance, and uses both concepts to depict his characters’ isolation. In the final chapter, I discuss rumor and reputation in the novel’s two distinct story-lines, demonstrating how they come together to create a cohesive artistic work. Approaching the novel as both a historical document and a work of art, I hope to critically examine this complicated historical moment and appraise Škvorecký’s contribution to the post-communist Czech dialogue. / text

This thesis focuses on the importance of truth and memory in the process of transitional justice, within the context of the aftermath of gross violations of human rights that occurred during the military dictatorship of 1976 to 1983 in Argentina. The military junta that ruled Argentina took power under the pretext of national security, arguing that an enemy threatened to destabilize and destroy Argentine society. During the period of the military dictatorship an estimated 30,000 people "disappeared"; relatives of those disappeared mobilized and formed human rights organizations to confront the military regime for its abuses. Once the dictatorship collapsed and democratic rule was reestablished these human rights organizations changed their focus, mobilizing once again to find their missing relatives, learn the truth, and prosecute those responsible of any crimes. A series of amnesty laws and pardons protected the perpetrators of many of the crimes of the military regime through most of the 1990's, until in 2005 the Argentine Supreme Court declared those laws unconstitutional. During the period before the 2005 ruling human rights organizations worked hard to gather the truth about the crimes of the military regime and ensure these crimes were not forgotten. Their initiatives included the famous weekly march to the Plaza de Mayo by members of Madres (Mothers), one of the most important human rights organizations in Argentina; escraches (reveal what is hidden) and public protests by HIJOS (Sons and daughters of the disappeared), actions in which members of HIJOS would go to the houses of known members of the military juntas and protest at their front doors; and programs to find missing grandchildren by Abuelas (Grandmothers), a human rights organization dedicated to searching for the missing children of the disappeared; and others. Because of the structure of terror during the military junta, most Argentines did not know exactly what was happening to the missing persons, and they were afraid to ask. The truth gathering initiatives and the official report of the commission charged with investigating the junta, CONADEP, came into being in response to this lack of knowledge. They helped to inform the Argentine people and the new generations of what had happened during the military dictatorship in hopes of making sure that such abuses do not occur again.

There is a growing literature in political science that focuses on the impact that policies, or mechanisms, of transitional justice (e.g. tribunals, truth commissions, and amnesty laws) have on future human rights abuses and democratization processes. However, this literature fails to differentiate between having a policy on the books and having a policy which is actually implemented. My project attempts for the first time to measure and assess how well two distinct types of transitional justice policies, truth commissions and ad-hoc tribunals, are designed and how well they are implemented. Variation in terms of policy structure (or institutional design) and implementation are currently unknown; knowing what the level of this variation is will enable us to understand the impact these transitional justice policies have on state-level human rights behavior. To conduct this analysis, I first offer a derivation of principal-agent theory and then assemble a new dataset of measures culled from primary and secondary data sources on over 40 different courts and truth commissions. For the data on the institutional design of these transitional justice policies, I collected and translated the legal mandates which create courts or commissions. I then coded the power, authority, and resource allocations which are designated in these mandates. For the data on implementation, I collected primary commission and court reports as well as secondary analyses and tracked the various activities and forms of engagement which were utilized in the process of carrying out each policy. These data were then compiled with a full set of economic, political, and social context measures and analyzed to determine whether policies with (1) more allocated authority/power or resources or (2) better implementation produced greater improvements in respect for human rights or reduced the likelihood of having additional instances of rights violations. Overall, I find that design and implementation measures are not strongly related to greater rights improvements or the reduced likelihood of violations, indicating that whatever positive changes may exist are not likely due to transitional justice practices. However, the use of transitional justice policies following human rights abuses is correlated with more positive outcomes. The ultimate goal of this project was to determine whether these policies can deliver justice and to initiate a dialogue on whether domestic populations are well served by high-cost policies (such as courts or commissions) or whether these priorities should be tabled in favor of addressing more immediate needs of these groups. The results of this dissertation appear to support the latter claim although these findings remain preliminary.

This research examines the process of memorialisation around the Indian Residential School System in Canada to draw connections between the fields of transitional justice and professional urban planning. For over a century, government and churches in Canada operated a system of residential schools that removed Indigenous children from their families and communities. Today, many Indigenous communities struggle with the intergenerational impacts of this system, and as a society we are attempting to heal the damaged relationships that have resulted. This research presents a comparative case study of two processes of memorialisation surrounding the residential school system. Through site observations, interviews, and analyses of documents, this research examines the transformation and memorialisation of the Mohawk Institute, a former residential school, into the Woodland Cultural Centre, a First Nations-run centre located in Brantford, Ontario. I compare this example with the national Commemoration Fund, set out in the Indian Residential School Settlement Agreement (2006), which settled lawsuits filed by residential school survivors against the federal government of Canada and several church organisations. This research underlines some tensions inherent in memorialising the human rights abuses experienced in the residential schools. A significant difficulty is establishing balance between leaving ownership of stories of the residential school experiences with survivors, while acknowledging the responsibilities that the whole of society must carry if reconciliation is to be achieved. I conclude that the process established through the Commemoration Fund does not adequately reflect this balance, leaving a heavy burden on survivors and their communities without providing adequate support. I further argue that the timelines established through this fund do not allow for the longer-term evolution that may characterize effective memorialisation projects. These themes link to theories around collaborative planning, and considerations of social justice and procedural fairness. In recent decades, collaborative planning has been seen as a way to make planning practices more inclusive. However, in the context of planning with Indigenous Peoples, collaborative processes may not be a sufficient response to rights claims. This has important implications for professional planners, as we work towards decolonization, reconciliation, and establishing just-relations between Indigenous and non-Indigenous populations in Canada. / Thesis (Master, Urban & Regional Planning) -- Queen's University, 2012-09-08 13:19:55.027

This thesis analyzes the development of national justice processes in Uganda in the wake of war in order to address key theoretical dilemmas that have recently emerged in the field of transitional justice. I focus on closely connected debates over the exclusion of socioeconomic justice, the relationship between international, national and local actors, the role of transitional justice discourse, and ultimately, the future of the field itself. Based on fieldwork undertaken in Kampala, the Acholi district and the temporary international arena created in Kampala for the 2010 ICC Review Conference, this thesis traces the role of local, national and international actors in the war itself, the search for peace, and the current post-conflict period. I examine the ways in which actors at all levels narrate the northern conflict and accordingly negotiate and contest the nature, scope and course of post conflict justice. I argue that the struggle for a meaningful approach to transitional justice is global in dimension. The power to define and perform postwar justice is concentrated in the hands of the state. A high risk persists that Uganda's transitional justice policy will prove an empty performance of 'victor's justice.' International and domestic actors alike have shaped and justified the Ugandan Government's self-interested approach and facilitated the dominance of international criminal justice. Conversely, civil society actors at all levels in Uganda draw on transitional justice as a radical language of resistance to fight for meaningful change. As long as it fails to address socioeconomic issues and structural violence however, transitional justice discourse will ultimately fall short of giving political voice to local priorities, and activating long-term social transformation. I argue that the field of transitional justice must be re-envisioned to embrace socioeconomic justice, in order to impel the endless pursuit of a just society. This task will require the collective efforts of a global constellation of actors.

abstract: Over the past decades, Colombian society has endured the impact of a longstanding political conflict among different actors and outrageous expressions of violence, especially among left wing guerrillas, right wing paramilitary groups and the state government. Drawing on socio-legal studies in transitional justice and human rights, this research attempts to analyze the recent experience of transitional justice in Colombia. The main purpose of this research is to understand how political, institutional and social actors, especially the government, the courts, the human rights and transitional justice NGOs, and victims associations, frame the mechanisms of transitional justice and use legal instruments to transform the conflict and reach what they consider "justice." It also attempts to understand the relations between politics and law in the context of a hegemonic discourse of security and give account of the expressions of resistance of human rights networks. In doing so, this research advances theory on literature about law and society and transitional justice by means of applying and expanding the theoretical framework of socio-legal research via the process of transitional justice in Colombia. The dissertation presents information gathered in the field in Colombia between July 2009 and July 2010 through a qualitative research design based on document analysis and in-depth interviews with members of different international and domestic human rights organizations, victims' organizations and national institutions. The research explains how these organizations combined political and legal actions in order to contest a project of security, and more specifically a project of impunity that came from negotiations with the paramilitary groups. The research also explains how the human rights networks not only mobilized internationally to gain political support from the international community, but also how these organizations contributed to transform the political debate about victims' rights. The research also explains how the human rights organizations and victims' groups articulated the global discourse on human rights and the local and domestic meanings constructed by the emerging movements of victims. Finally, the research analyses the relevance of legal practices consisting on strategic use of law in order to protect the victims of human rights violations. / Dissertation/Thesis / Ph.D. Justice Studies 2011