Magister Philosophiae - MPhil / This chapter will start the debate by concentrating on the phenomenon or occurrence of religious pluralism. Thereafter, the reasons for its existence and its importance in providing a system of coexistence in mutuality will be examined. The contours of interreligious interaction will be outlined as briefly as possible, by assessing the processes of interreligious dialogue and the role this dialogue must play, from a Christian perspective. An attempt will be made to show how Christianity's view of the other shifted from viewing the other as posing a threat, to regarding the other as affording an opportunity to understand personal and individual reality within a context of diversity. A further attempt is made to show how by mutual effort evil and injustice can be eradicated through dialogue, within the interreligious context.

Thesis advisor: James Keenan / Thesis advisor: Daniel J. Daly / Thesis (STL) — Boston College, 2021. / Submitted to: Boston College. School of Theology and Ministry. / Discipline: Sacred Theology.

Background: Medication errors account for nearly 250 000 deaths in the United States annually, with approximately 60% of errors occurring during transitions of care. Previous studies demonstrated that almost 80% of participants with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) have experienced a medication error related to their antiretroviral therapy (ART). Objective: This retrospective chart review examines propensity and type of ART-related errors and further seeks to identify risk factors associated with higher error rates. Methods: Participants were identified as hospitalized adults ≥18 years old with preexisting HIV diagnosis receiving home ART from July 2015 to June 2017. Medication error categories included delays in therapy, dosing errors, scheduling conflicts, and miscellaneous errors. Logistic regression was used to examine risk factors for medication errors. Results: Mean age was 49 years, 76.5% were men, and 72.1% used hospital-supplied medication. For the primary outcome, 60.3% (41/68) of participants had at least 1 error, with 31.3% attributed to delays in therapy. Logistic regression demonstrated multiple tablet regimens (odds ratio [OR]: 3.40, 95% confidence interval [CI]: 1.22-9.48, P =.019) and serum creatinine (SCr) ≥1.5 mg/dL (OR: 8.87, 95% CI: 1.07-73.45, P =.043) were predictive for risk of medication errors. Regimens with significant drug–drug interactions (eg, cobicistat-containing regimens) were not significantly associated with increased risk of medication errors. Conclusions and Relevance: ART-related medication error rates remain prevalent and exceeded 60%. Independent risk factors for medication errors include use of multiple tablet regimens and SCr ≥1.5 mg/dL.

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What do we owe to each other in civil society? And what do we owe to each other specifically in the aftermath of a large-scale moral transgression that implicates or impacts a large portion of the population? This dissertation, which takes place at the intersection of political and moral philosophy, begins with this question. I argue that in order to make sense of our social and political obligations under the circumstances of so-called transitional justice, we must first interrogate the moral grounding of those obligations — an activity that is all too easy to overlook or engage in non-reflectively. I argue that while a consequentialist approach to ethical value underlies our intuitions in transitional justice as presently practiced, a contractualist approach offers a promising alternative. On my account, a contract-based approach is especially well-suited to transitional moments, not only because it conveys the collaborative nature of the transitional project, but because it reifies the agency and autonomy of previously victimized individuals. Chapter I draws out the distinction between transitional justice as an array of formal mechanisms and practices (‘formal transitional justice’) and transitional justice as a collection of intuitions about response to grievous wrongdoing (‘ideal transitional justice’). Our ideas about transitional justice influence and shape the form it ultimately takes on the world stage, and those ideas are informed in large part by our moral intuitions. To that end, I introduce the notion of ‘transitional ethics’ as a complement to transitional justice. In Chapter II, I make the case that a thorough exploration of transitional ethics requires us to investigate the suitability of various ethical approaches for the transitional moment. While virtue ethical and deontological approaches fail to resonate robustly with the unique demands of the transitional moment, consequentialist and contractualist approaches succeed. Indeed, the former is already implicitly present in most scholarly theorizing about transitional justice, but the latter deserves increased attention. It is with this consideration that the remainder of the dissertation is concerned. Chapter III considers the impact of a contractualist transitional ethic on victim experiences, and makes the case that the contractualist emphasis on relationships lends itself particularly well to the reification of their moral worth and dignity. Chapter IV turns towards perpetrators, particularly to cases of ‘complex’ perpetrators who themselves may also be victims in some sense or another. Chapter V engages with the final puzzle: how can we hold wrongdoers retributively accountable (if indeed such a thing is desirable) when we orient our approach to transitional justice around the recognition of personal dignity? I argue that the recognition of personal dignity, which contractualism emphasizes, is not incompatible with accountability. Rather, conceiving of perpetrators as signatories to the social contract protects their fundamental rights while emphasizing their civil responsibilities.

Despite the signing of the 2005 Sudan Comprehensive Peace Agreement that ended the two decades of South-North Sudan war; and the 2015 Agreement on the Resolution of the Conflict in South Sudan, to end the current civil war, armed conflicts persist in South Sudan. Two key inadequacies of the liberal peacebuilding model, applied to address modern conflicts in Africa and across the globe are its insistence on international justice instruments such as the International Criminal Court, and the failure to recognize the role of local approaches and to incorporate them into peacebuilding intervention policies. This has resulted in failures to address the grievances and bitterness of war affected people and to reconcile divided communities. This study examines the potential and limits of applying local approaches to post-conflict peacebuilding in South Sudan. Based on empirical data obtained through qualitative case study conducted in South Sudan over five months in 2016, the findings reveal that despite the wide use of local institutions and justice mechanisms, many challenges exist, that pose serious difficulties in solely applying these strategies to transitional justice. However, for the liberal peacebuilding model to address the root causes of internal conflicts and build sustainable peace, local strategies could provide a significant complementary contribution, since dealing with the past entails more than retribution and truth seeking. The study has wider implications in practical and theoretical considerations for ongoing armed conflicts in Africa and other parts of the world.

Yes / How, after 1945, did France and Germany succeed in overcoming their rivalry, a rivalry marked by numerous bloody conflicts, to heal the wounds of the past and work towards a common European future? How, after 1994, did Rwanda succeed in overcoming the devastation of the genocide and reconcile its communities, to become a key actor in East African regional integration? These two difficult reconciliations are at first sight very different, but they warrant comparison, in order to gain a better understanding of the strategies which enabled each party in each case to overcome the most unimaginable challenges. Through their respective approaches, addressing the scars of the past and via respectful joint acts of remembrance, France and Germany on the one hand and the Rwandan communities on the other, have been able to rediscover peace and form a desire to work together as well as with their neighbors towards attaining a more prosperous future.

<p>This research project involves a comparative, cross-national study of truth and reconciliation commissions (TRCs) in countries around the world that have used these extra-judicial institutions to pursue justice and promote national reconciliation during periods of democratic transition or following a civil conflict marked by intense violence and severe human rights abuses. An important objective of truth and reconciliation commissions involves instituting measures to address serious human rights abuses that have occurred as a result of discrimination, ethnocentrism and racism. In recent years, rather than solely utilizing traditional methods of conflict resolution and criminal prosecution, transitional governments have established truth and reconciliation commissions as part of efforts to foster psychological, social and political healing. </p><p>The primary objective of this research project is to determine why there has been a proliferation of truth and reconciliation commissions around the world in recent decades, and assess whether the perceived effectiveness of these commissions is real and substantial. In this work, using a multi-method approach that involves quantitative and qualitative analysis, I consider the institutional design and structural composition of truth and reconciliation commissions, as well as the roles that these commissions play in the democratic transformation of nations with a history of civil conflict and human rights violations. </p><p>In addition to a focus on institutional design of truth and reconciliation commissions, I use a group identity framework that is grounded in social identity theory to examine the historical background and sociopolitical context in which truth commissions have been adopted in countries around the world. This group identity framework serves as an invaluable lens through which questions related to truth and reconciliation commissions and other transitional justice mechanisms can be explored. I also present a unique theoretical framework, the reconciliatory democratization paradigm, that is especially useful for examining the complex interactions between the various political elements that directly affect the processes of democratic consolidation and reconciliation in countries in which truth and reconciliation commissions have been established. Finally, I tackle the question of whether successor regimes that institute truth and reconciliation commissions can effectively address the human rights violations that occurred in the past, and prevent the recurrence of these abuses.</p> / Dissertation

Discussions of genocide and ethnic conflict, and their aftermaths, will nearly always provoke emotions and memories which make navigating the subject difficult. Equal sensitivity can lurk in discussions of how reconciliation and lasting peace can best be sought in the volatile Post-Ethnic Conflict Environment (PECE). The Rwandan Government's primary Ingando Peace and Solidarity Camp serves as an example of a mainly Western-funded project that, although superficially ticking the requisite 'democratic and inclusive' aid-agency boxes, relies almost totally on a perceived 'traditional' approach to post-Genocide reconciliation that hinders a truly open discussion of the past. In this thesis I will discuss how the Ingando phenomenon is being utilized by the Rwandan National Unity and Reconciliation Commission (NURC) as a method of establishing unity and social cohesion at the expense of reconciliation, and show how this is reflected in the teaching and content of the work at the camp, where a single view of the past is being promulgated at the expense of open debate.

This thesis provides a baseline understanding of the support given by foreign governments to South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC). The study endeavours, first, to analyze the instances of international assistance provided to the TRC to determine what aid worked well and why or why not. The thesis finds overall that foreign support has been an important bulwark to the Commission. Nevertheless, the thesis identifies shortcomings in the effectiveness of foreign assistance to the TRC. Based on these findings the thesis pursues a second objective: extracting lessons from the TRC to guide future international efforts in support of truth commissions in post-conflict and transitional states. The thesis underscores common challenges facing truth commissions. By extrapolating from the South African case the thesis recommends ways international actors can best help future truth commissions overcome these difficulties.