Gender inequality has during the past decades become an increasingly studied topic in the field of peace and conflict. However, there are still many gaps to fill. This thesis is an aim at explaining a phenomenon that has yet to be uncovered, namely the relation between conflict related gender inequality and women’s attitudes towards reconciliation processes that include truth-telling and reintegration of ex-combatants. The thesis builds upon prior qualitative and quantitative studies of gender inequality in relation to conflict, and its potential consequences, as well as trauma-related psychology. Using a direct and structured comparative method of comparison between Rwanda and Sri Lanka, it is found that gender inequality both during and after conflict affect women’s attitudes towards peacebuilding negatively.

This study examines the impact of traditional rituals in truth and reconciliation commissions (TRCs) on the social reintegration of ex-combatants in post-conflict societies. Little is known of how traditional rituals can contribute to transitional justice mechanisms in reintegration ex-combatants and this thesis aims to contribute to this by asking How does incorporating traditional ritual in the TRC affect the social re-integration off ex-combatants? I conduct a structured, focused comparison of two TRCs, one in Solomon Islands and one in Timor-Leste, to test the theoretical argument if inclusion of traditional rituals leads to more successful social reintegration of ex-combatants. The empirical findings lend some support to the hypothesis, as the TRC with traditional rituals incorporated had more successful social reintegration of ex-combatants than the TRC without. However, the empirics point to potential alternative explanations that might influence the social reintegration. There are also some limitations in the data available, calling for future research.

本論文重要的目的，瞭解捷克轉型正義的特色與淨化法的施行。捷克轉型正義，發生在蘇聯解體、中東歐國家政治、經濟轉型的脈絡下。去共化和處理過去共遺緒問題，是中東歐國家轉型正義的重要任務，淨化法在如此政治環境下產生。捷克的淨化政策，由於國內政治非制度淨化，加上民主選舉過程，導致黑函滿天飛，所造成嚴重的政治問題，因而訂定的立法規範。這樣的背景下，淨化政策是一種特殊、臨時的政策工具。反映出當時轉型政治所面臨的困難，以及共黨政治轉型到民主政治之間，體系轉換的矛盾。此外，淨化政策也代表，當時捷克政治環境危機的解決方式。回到歷史的脈絡下來看，淨化政策是一種人事改革的手段，也是推動整體改革的基礎。解構舊有的權力結構，讓新民主有機會發展。 淨化政策在施行上，仍有許多爭議，包括可能侵害個人政治權力，以及被認為是一種對於共黨的報復手段，但淨化政策最重要的目標，是為建立特殊時期的改革基礎，也沒有具體的資料顯示，淨化政策會造成政治民主發展的傷害，相反的，淨化政策的施行得當，對於新民主的發展是有助益。 / The most important purpose of this thesis is to understand the characteristics of the Czech transitional justice and Lustration Law. The Czech, as a Central and Eastern European countries, transitional justice occurred in the Post-Soviet with the political, economic restructuring context. Both "de-communism" and "the dealing with the past" is important task of the Transitional Justice in Central and Eastern European countries, and the Lustration Law implement in this background. Czech Lustration Law is result from wild lustration, because of democratic electoral system, leading to blackmail over the place, caused a serious political problem. Therefore, the legislators decided to make the law. Based on the above, the Lustration Law is a special, temporary policy tool. The situation reflects the challenges of political transition, and the communist political transition to a democratic system, is facing tremendous contradiction. In addition, the Lustration policy also represents a solution choice of the Czech political environment crisis. Lustration policy is a kind of a personnel reform policy, and promotes the overall reform. Destroy the former power structure, so that the new democracy has a chance to develop. Examining the Lustration policy, there is a lot of controversy. Including it may infringe the personal political right, and it’s considered as retaliation to the former political elite. However, the Lustration policies the most important goal is to establish the basis of a special period of reform. There is no specific evidence to show that Lustration Law will result in damage to the development of political democracy. On the other hand, lustration policy is implemented appropriately; it would be beneficial for the development of new democracy.

Les situations d'après-guerre demandent plus qu'une déclaration officielle pour retrouver la stabilité et l'entente sociales. Les réflexions philosophiques portant sur les moyens d'atteindre une réconciliation sont nombreuses, mais il y a encore peu de recherches portant sur l'impact de l'art pour ressouder les liens sociaux et guérir les membres constituant la société. Après avoir démontré la légitimité d'une réflexion portant sur le rôle que pourrait tenir le théâtre pour la réconciliation et l'établissement de normes, nous justifions pourquoi les notions de récit, de performance publique, de travail de création et de transmission d'émotion deviennent des critères de validation du théâtre pour la réconciliation. Par l'usage du théâtre, les intervenants pourront ainsi mieux accompagner les victimes dans leur deuil et les aider à créer de nouveaux liens profitant au développement d'un contrat social sain pour la refonte de l’État. / Post-war situations ask more than an official declaration to find social stability and mutual understanding. The philosophic reflections concerning the means to reach reconciliation are numerous, but there is more research to be done concerning the impact of art to strengthen the social links and cure the members constituting society. Having demonstrated the legitimacy of a reflection concerning the role of theater in reconciliation and in the establishment of standards, we prove why the notions of narrative, public performance, creation process and transmission of emotion become criteria of validation of theater as a way towards reconciliation. By the use of theater, the community workers can better accompany the victims in their mourning and help them create new ties benefiting the development of a healthy social contract for the redesign of the State.

Individuals who have travelled from Sweden and affiliated to the Islamic State in Syria will, after the fall of the caliphate, return home to Sweden. The concept of ISIS returnees has begun to dominate the debate and there is a common concern that individuals who possess radicalized opinions should return to Sweden only to commit terrorist crimes. The study is based on a qualitative research method, specifically an interview methodology with semi-structured interviews. The study identifies the capacity Sweden possesses, according to experts, both socially and legally, to deal with the problems of Swedish citizens who wants to return from ISIS-controlled areas. The study also aims to examines measures that is the most suitable to apply to returnees from the expert’s perspective. An analysis based on the Transitional Justice framework identified the importance of applying both legal aspects, as well as social processes in order to handle the problems with returnees. Through a review of previous research, three courts were identified, because they previously had the ability to prosecute individuals who committed criminal acts, these are: The Ad-hoc Tribunal, the Hybrid Court and the International Criminal Court. It was therefore considered important to examine these in order to review whether the courts were a legal alternative in the discussion of returnees who committed terrorist crimes. All actors, both international and national, have lack of capacity and efficiency regarding how to handle the ISIS-returnees. The study therefore contributes to an understanding of the capacity Sweden possesses in order to handle the problem of individuals who are now returning from ISIS, and also proposes new ways to handle the problematic aspects about ISIS-returnees to Sweden.

Esta dissertação tem como objeto a análise do impacto da condenação do Brasil pela Corte Interamericana de Direitos Humanos no caso Guerrilha do Araguaia sobre a atuação do Ministério Público Federal na persecução penal das graves violações de direitos humanos ocorridas na ditadura militar no Brasil. Considerando a existência de uma norma global de responsabilização penal individual, verifica-se que a demanda doméstica de responsabilização dos agentes da ditadura foi submetida ao Sistema Interamericano de Direitos Humanos e retornou ao plano doméstico de modo a destravar a atuação institucional do Ministério Público Federal na pauta. Se antes da condenação pela corte internacional havia uma atuação de poucos procuradores, depois da sentença se verifica uma gradual institucionalização da pauta internamente no Ministério Público Federal, que tomou para si a determinação da Corte Interamericana de Direitos Humanos de responsabilização dos agentes da ditadura. O estudo discute a movimentação institucional do Ministério Público Federal na pauta, as teses adotadas pelos procuradores, as vinte e seis ações penais ajuizadas desde 2011, os obstáculos encontrados, a recepção do Judiciário e os desafios para a persecução penal hoje no Brasil. Assim, a dissertação sustenta que o Ministério Público Federal tem tido uma atuação fundamental como ator judicial interno na mobilização do direito internacional dos direitos humanos para fazer avançar a cascata da justiça, configurando-se como um ator central para o processo de justiça de transição no Brasil, que sempre encontrou uma limitação no aspecto da responsabilização penal em razão da Lei de Anistia. / This thesis aims to analyze the impact of Brazil\'s conviction by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights regarding the Araguaia Guerrilla on Federal Prosecution Service\'s (MPF) action, namely in the penal prosecution of gross human rights violations that occurred during Brazil\'s military dictatorship. Bearing in mind the existence of an international law of individual penal responsibility, it was noted that the domestic suit against dictatorship agents was submitted to the Inter-American System of Human Rights; it returned to the domestic sphere as to unlock the institutional action of MPF. Before the international court\'s conviction there was little action in the hands of few prosecutors. After the sentence, one can observe a gradual institutionalization and internalization of this subject in the MPF, which took on the responsibilization of dictatorship agents determined by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights. The study discusses the institutional mobilization of MPF in the subject, prosecutors\' legal arguments, the 26 penal suits filed since 2011, obstacles found, Judiciary\'s reception, and challenges of criminal prosecution in Brazil. Hence, this thesis holds that the MPF has been crucial as a domestic judicial actor regarding the use of international human rights law to enforce the justice cascade, posing itself as a core actor for Brazil\'s transitional justice, which has been obstructed by the country\'s Amnesty law.

O direito à verdade frente a graves violações de direitos humanos foi criado recentemente e tem um significado jurídico que permanece incerto em diversos aspectos relevantes. As divergências em torno do seu conceito, que ainda está em formação, geram problemas práticos quando se busca tornar esse direito efetivo. A tese analisa a questão que está na base do debate jurídico-dogmático sobre esse direito, a saber, o significado que o termo verdade adquire ao se tornar o seu objeto. É feita uma investigação sobre a forma como este tema é abordado pelos estudos sobre justiça de transição e sobre como se deu a emergência e o desenvolvimento do direito à verdade no direito internacional dos direitos humanos, nas esferas universal e interamericana. O objetivo é, depois, buscar compreender o que, de um ponto de vista teórico, fez com que surgisse na história e no pensamento político-jurídico a necessidade de sua criação e passou a alimentar o esforço para a sua conceituação. Essa análise aponta que a verdade almejada com o direito em estudo tem outras dimensões para além da busca de informações desconhecidas sobre casos individuais de violações a direitos humanos. Como o tema da verdade, sabidamente, é de enorme extensão no campo filosófico, o presente trabalho faz uso de temas de reflexão de Hannah Arendt, que para essa temática tem tido grande repercussão inclusive em sede doutrinária, com o fim de, por meio de um desenvolvimento extensivo, examinar as diferentes dimensões do problema. / The right to the truth concerning gross human rights violations was created recently, and has a legal meaning that remains uncertain in many relevant aspects. The disagreements about its concept, which is still in development, cause practical problems when one tries to make this right effective. The thesis analyses the issue that underlies the legal-dogmatic debate about this right, i.e., the meaning of the term truth when it becomes its object. An investigation is undertaken on how this theme is addressed by studies on transitional justice and also on the emergence and development of the right to the truth in international human rights law, in the universal and in the inter-American systems. The goal is then to try to understand what, from a theoretical point of view, led to the emergence in history and political-legal thought of the need for its creation, and began to feed the effort to its conceptualization. This analysis indicates that the truth sought with the right examined here has dimensions other than the search for unknown information about individual cases of human rights violations. The theme of truth being, as known, a subject of enormous extension in the philosophical field, the present study makes use of topics of reflection by Hannah Arendt, which have had a great repercussion on this subject even in legal dogmatic thought, in order to examine, through an extensive development, the different dimensions of the problem. By doing so, it is intended to shed light on the way the conceptualization of the right to the truth is being consolidated and on the difficulties it faces.

O objetivo desta tese é analisar como e por que a normatividade do sistema interamericano de direitos humanos sobre o tema da justiça de transição pôde exercer impacto sobre questões de direitos humanos no Brasil, Colômbia, México e Peru. Partindo da abordagem emergente na literatura de que os efeitos dos regimes internacionais de direitos humanos são condicionados por fatores domésticos dos países aos quais se dirigem suas normas e pressões, a pesquisa buscou delinear como a política doméstica influencia e medeia o impacto potencial dessas normas internacionais que compõem a cascata de justiça, salientando o papel de organizações não governamentais (ONGs) de direitos humanos e da cúpula do Judiciário local, já que tais atores são centrais tanto para o processo de justiça de transição quanto para a ativação e aplicação da normatividade do sistema interamericano. Nesse sentido, a partir de um desenho de pesquisa qualitativo que se baseou na realização de entrevistas semiestruturadas com atores da sociedade civil e magistrados envolvidos com a temática, além da consulta a fontes secundárias e sentenças judiciais, testamos a hipótese segundo a qual o sistema interamericano adquirirá aderência doméstica se e quando esses atores forem capazes de entendê-lo e instrumentalizá-lo como um mecanismo efetivo para o seu empoderamento. Assim, contrariamente à maioria dos estudos que privilegiam a ação do Executivo para explicar o impacto de normas e pressões internacionais de direitos humanos, nossas conclusões apontam para a necessidade de que as agendas de pesquisa sobre o regime internacional de direitos humanos e justiça de transição atentem mais para o papel e perfil dos atores judiciais e organizações litigantes de direitos humanos, pois os avanços em termos de direitos humanos passam muitas vezes pela mobilização de uma normatividade internacional que não pode ser entendida de maneira divorciada da agência de ONGs e magistrados. / The aim of this dissertation is to analyze how and why the norms of the Inter-American Human Rights System on transitional justice exerted an impact on human rights issues in Brazil, Colombia, Mexico and Peru. Based on the emerging theoretical approach according to which the effects of international human rights regimes are conditioned by domestic factors of the target-countries, our research seeks to unravel how domestic politics influences and mediates the potential impact of these international norms that comprise the justice cascade, highlighting the role of human rights non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and the local higher courts, since these actors are central both to the process of transitional justice and for the activation and enforcement of the Inter-American systems rules. In this sense, a qualitative research design based on semi-structured interviews with civil society actors and judges involved with the theme was adopted, in addition to the consultation of secondary sources and courts rulings. Then, from the analysis of this material, we tested the hypothesis that the Inter-American system will have a domestic impact if and when NGOs and local judges are able to understand and use it as an effective mechanism for their own \"empowerment\". Therefore, contrary to most studies that focus on Executives actions to explain the impact of international human rights norms, our conclusions urge the research agendas on the human rights international regime and transitional justice to pay more attention to the role and profile of judicial actors and domestic litigants, since human rights advacements are anchored on the mobilization of international norms that cannot be understood separately from the agency of NGOs and magistrates

Le paroxysme atteint par la diffusion incontrôlée durant les années 1990 du phénomène des enfants soldats a obligé la communauté internationale à renforcer la protection des enfants et à instituer des garanties supplémentaires à l’égard des enfants touchés par les conflits armés. Les zones d’instabilité politique, les conflits, ainsi que l'impunité quasi généralisée en matière de violations graves des droits de l’homme ont été les principales sources de la montée en puissance du phénomène des enfants soldats. L’objectif qui consistait à mettre fin à l’implication illégale d'enfants dans les conflits armés a nécessité une coopération étroite entre tous les États concernés cependant que divers problèmes d’ordre juridique n’ont pas tardé à faire leur apparition. Par ailleurs, la diversité des ordres juridiques et la variété des approches doctrinales quant à la définition de la notion d’« enfant » ont rendu difficile une approche consensuelle. L’institution d'une responsabilité pénale internationale pour le recrutement des enfants, érigé en crime de guerre, n’était qu’un début. La question de la justice dans les pays sortis des conflits est toujours d'actualité et l’adoption d’autres formes de justice s’avère indispensable dans le processus de réconciliation et de réinsertion des enfants. La responsabilité pénale des enfants soldats est examinée sous son double aspect victime / bourreau, en abordant certaines affaires emblématiques. / The uncontrolled spread of the phenomenon of child soldiers culminated in such a point during the 1990s that the international community was forced to strengthen the protection of children by introducing additional safeguards for children affected by armed conflict. Some of the main explanations for the rise of the phenomenon of child soldiers have been: areas of political instability, conflicts and almost universal impunity in cases of serious human rights violations. The objective of putting an end to the illegal involvement of children in armed conflict required close cooperation between all states concerned. Yet, legal complications did not take long to appear. Moreover, the diversity of legal systems and the variety of doctrinal approaches to the definition of the term "child" made a consensual approach difficult. The international criminalization of recruiting children, defined as a war crime, was just the beginning. The issue of justice in countries emerging from conflict is still relevant today and the adoption of other forms of justice is essential in the process of reconciliation and reintegration of former child soldiers. The criminal accountability of child soldiers is examined in its dual aspect of victim/executioner, addressing some emblematic cases.

This thesis examines how the promise and institutionalization of 'justice for victims' has shaped the ICC's justice vision and identity. Drawing on interviews with 90 practitioners in The Hague, Kenya and Uganda, it undertakes a sociological and institutional analysis of how 'justice for victims' has evolved in the Court's first two decades through the definitions and redefinitions, pushes and pulls, strategies and miscalculations of the Court's diverse actors both in The Hague and in the field. It argues that the introduction of 'justice for victims' has led to a rift within the Court between those who embrace a narrow understanding of justice as 'fair trials' and those who see the ICC as an opening for broader justice processes. These rifts and gaps are reinforced by the Court's actors in the field such as victims' lawyers and intermediaries who sometimes assume political advocacy roles beyond what the Court's judges envisaged or follow their parochial interests on the ground. While the ICC's judges have increasingly curtailed victim participation and reparation in the court room, the Court's practices on the ground reflect an uneasy fusion of legal justice, development, local and national politics with a proliferation of new justice concepts including 'transformative justice' and 'gender justice'. So far, these justice contestations have not chipped away, much less undermined, the Court's legitimacy. Rather, the Court has thrived on its justice contradictions; its failure to commit to any particular justice vision while loosely relating to all possible visions, has made the Court impervious to critique. But the thesis will also show that 'justice for victims' at the ICC is schizophrenic: it is inherently unstable and its contradictory dynamics may at some point rip the concept apart - and with it the Court's legitimacy.