Justice and reconciliation are both highly complex concepts that are often described as incompatible alternatives in the aftermath of violent conflicts, despite the fact that both are fundamental to peacebuilding in societies divided by the legacies of political violence, oppression and exclusion. This thesis examines the relationship between justice and reconciliation, pursued as essential ingredients of peacebuilding. After advancing an inclusive working conceptual framework in which seemingly competing conceptions regarding justice and reconciliation are reconceived to work compatibly for building peace, the thesis presents the results of an in-depth case study of Rwanda's post-genocide justice and reconciliation endeavour. The thesis focuses on Rwanda's justice and reconciliation efforts and their relationship to the ongoing challenge of reformulating Rwandans' social identities. A field research conducted for this study revealed that issues of victimhood, justice and reconciliation were highly contested among individuals and groups with varied experiences of the country's violent history. Resolving these conflicting narratives so that each Rwandan's narrative/identity is dissociated from the negation of the other's victimhood emerged as a paramount challenge in Rwanda's quest for justice and reconciliation. Rwanda's approach to justice and reconciliation can be seen as an innovative both/and approach that seeks to overcome dichotomous thinking by addressing various justice and reconciliation concerns in compatible ways. However, by limiting its efforts to the issues that arose from crimes committed under the former regimes, the justice and reconciliation endeavour of the Rwandan government fails to reconcile people's conflicting narratives of victimhood, which will be essential to transform the existing racialised and politicised ethnic identities of Rwandan people.

Este estudo investigou o cotidiano de adolescentes de famílias de baixa renda, especialmente daqueles que cuidam de seus irmãos, e suas concepções de justiça retributiva. Participaram 20 adolescentes, com idades entre 12 e 16 anos. Os instrumentos utilizados foram: ficha de dados sociodemográficos, genograma familiar, entrevista sobre o dia de vida e histórias sobre justiça retributiva. Os dados foram submetidos à análise de conteúdo. Os resultados indicam que tanto adolescentes do sexo feminino quanto do sexo masculino realizam atividades de cuidado. Todavia, as primeiras são as que mais assumem tarefas domésticas. Ambas as atividades acarretam prejuízos ao desempenho escolar. Esses adolescentes têm pouco tempo para o lazer. As sanções por reciprocidade foram as mais escolhidas. Entretanto, a opção por esse tipo de sanção deve-se mais a uma descrença na eficácia do castigo que a uma crença no poder educativo do diálogo. / This study investigated the daily lives of adolescents from low-income families, particularly those adolescents who look after their siblings, and the adolescents’ conceptions of retributive justice. Twenty adolescents, from 12 to 16 years of age, participated. The instruments were: a record of socio-demographic data, a family genogram, an interview about daily life, and vignettes about retributive justice. The data were content analyzed, and the results indicated that male adolescents were as likely as female adolescents to be involved in care activities although females were more likely to do domestic chores. Both activities were prejudicial to their school performance. These adolescents had little free time. Sanctions of reciprocity were most often chosen; however the choice of this type of sanction seemed more likely to involve disbelief in the efficacy of punishment than a belief in the educative power of dialog.

The Rome Statute saw the provision of three statutory rights for victims: the right to participation, protection, and reparations. The addition of these rights is an attempt to incorporate elements of restorative and reparative justice processes into a primarily retributive system. The emerging jurisprudence shows there are competing tensions developing in all areas. The right to participation saw initially broad decisions consistently scaled back by the Appeals Chamber to ensure a more streamlined approach. The right to protection, in contrast, has continued to be upheld by all Court levels resulting in significant trial challenges and delays. While the right to reparations remains untested, it is likely to only partially fulfill restorative aims. This thesis argues that while victim involvement has altered the traditional trial process, restorative aims will remain unmet. However, victim involvement has begun to shed light on the competing purposes of justice within the Rome Statute framework.

Este estudo investigou o cotidiano de adolescentes de famílias de baixa renda, especialmente daqueles que cuidam de seus irmãos, e suas concepções de justiça retributiva. Participaram 20 adolescentes, com idades entre 12 e 16 anos. Os instrumentos utilizados foram: ficha de dados sociodemográficos, genograma familiar, entrevista sobre o dia de vida e histórias sobre justiça retributiva. Os dados foram submetidos à análise de conteúdo. Os resultados indicam que tanto adolescentes do sexo feminino quanto do sexo masculino realizam atividades de cuidado. Todavia, as primeiras são as que mais assumem tarefas domésticas. Ambas as atividades acarretam prejuízos ao desempenho escolar. Esses adolescentes têm pouco tempo para o lazer. As sanções por reciprocidade foram as mais escolhidas. Entretanto, a opção por esse tipo de sanção deve-se mais a uma descrença na eficácia do castigo que a uma crença no poder educativo do diálogo. / This study investigated the daily lives of adolescents from low-income families, particularly those adolescents who look after their siblings, and the adolescents’ conceptions of retributive justice. Twenty adolescents, from 12 to 16 years of age, participated. The instruments were: a record of socio-demographic data, a family genogram, an interview about daily life, and vignettes about retributive justice. The data were content analyzed, and the results indicated that male adolescents were as likely as female adolescents to be involved in care activities although females were more likely to do domestic chores. Both activities were prejudicial to their school performance. These adolescents had little free time. Sanctions of reciprocity were most often chosen; however the choice of this type of sanction seemed more likely to involve disbelief in the efficacy of punishment than a belief in the educative power of dialog.

Este estudo investigou o cotidiano de adolescentes de famílias de baixa renda, especialmente daqueles que cuidam de seus irmãos, e suas concepções de justiça retributiva. Participaram 20 adolescentes, com idades entre 12 e 16 anos. Os instrumentos utilizados foram: ficha de dados sociodemográficos, genograma familiar, entrevista sobre o dia de vida e histórias sobre justiça retributiva. Os dados foram submetidos à análise de conteúdo. Os resultados indicam que tanto adolescentes do sexo feminino quanto do sexo masculino realizam atividades de cuidado. Todavia, as primeiras são as que mais assumem tarefas domésticas. Ambas as atividades acarretam prejuízos ao desempenho escolar. Esses adolescentes têm pouco tempo para o lazer. As sanções por reciprocidade foram as mais escolhidas. Entretanto, a opção por esse tipo de sanção deve-se mais a uma descrença na eficácia do castigo que a uma crença no poder educativo do diálogo. / This study investigated the daily lives of adolescents from low-income families, particularly those adolescents who look after their siblings, and the adolescents’ conceptions of retributive justice. Twenty adolescents, from 12 to 16 years of age, participated. The instruments were: a record of socio-demographic data, a family genogram, an interview about daily life, and vignettes about retributive justice. The data were content analyzed, and the results indicated that male adolescents were as likely as female adolescents to be involved in care activities although females were more likely to do domestic chores. Both activities were prejudicial to their school performance. These adolescents had little free time. Sanctions of reciprocity were most often chosen; however the choice of this type of sanction seemed more likely to involve disbelief in the efficacy of punishment than a belief in the educative power of dialog.

The 1999 Constitution of Nigeria provides expressly for the safety and protection of the rights of citizens in general terms, including other provisions which guarantee the safety of the Nigerian people; however, the Constitution places priority on the rights of criminals over and above the rights and interests of crime victims. This position and situation has engendered public dissatisfaction with the Nigerian criminal justice systems in general and the Constitution in particular. This study has analysed the means and mechanisms available in the Nigerian legal system for crime victims’ compensation and restitution for criminal acts committed against them, and it has found that those means are different to what are obtained in other jurisdictions. The study further found that state-funded compensation for crime victims is practiced to various degrees in places like New Zealand, Great Britain, the United States of America, Canada, Australia, Germany, Finland, Colombia and the Philippines to mention but a few. The study discovered that, as it stands presently in Nigeria, there are no public compensation schemes for crime victims and that the compensation mechanisms that exist in the country which the courts award are grossly inadequate. The study also found that the Nigerian government does not see the need to establish state-funded compensation schemes for crime victims on the premise that crime victims should exercise their rights to claim compensation from the criminal offenders in delictual or tort claims. This study, therefore, argues that the extant legal frameworks in Nigeria are manifestly inadequate to provide for the needs of crime victims effectively in the aftermath of victimization and recommends the development of a system for state-funded compensation for crime victims in Nigeria building on comparative best practices and international guidelines such as the UN Declaration of Basic Principles of Justice for Victims of Crime and Abuse of Power and the Commonwealth Guidelines for the Treatment of Victims of Crime. / Thesis (LLD)--University of Pretoria, 2017. / Centre for Human Rights / LLD / Unrestricted

This thesis explores how Nobel laureate Olga Tokarczuk's 2008 novel, Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead, engages with William Blake's life and his writings on animal welfare and speaks to current conversations about multispecies justice in the environmental humanities. It argues, first, that in recognizing how this novel's protagonist, Janina, selectively reads Blake to rationalize retributive justice, readers should resist a tendency to mistake this character for Tokarczuk's ideal advocate for environmental ethics. Secondly, it asserts that legal scholars' division between retributive and restorative justice offers valuable framework for approaching both this novel and ongoing debates about multispecies relations and environmental justice.

Justice and reconciliation are both highly complex concepts that are often described as incompatible alternatives in the aftermath of violent conflicts, despite the fact that both are fundamental to peacebuilding in societies divided by the legacies of political violence, oppression and exclusion. This thesis examines the relationship between justice and reconciliation, pursued as essential ingredients of peacebuilding. After advancing an inclusive working conceptual framework in which seemingly competing conceptions regarding justice and reconciliation are reconceived to work compatibly for building peace, the thesis presents the results of an in-depth case study of Rwanda¿s post-genocide justice and reconciliation endeavour. The thesis focuses on Rwanda¿s justice and reconciliation efforts and their relationship to the ongoing challenge of reformulating Rwandans¿ social identities. A field research conducted for this study revealed that issues of victimhood, justice and reconciliation were highly contested among individuals and groups with varied experiences of the country¿s violent history. Resolving these conflicting narratives so that each Rwandan¿s narrative/identity is dissociated from the negation of the other¿s victimhood emerged as a paramount challenge in Rwanda¿s quest for justice and reconciliation. Rwanda¿s approach to justice and reconciliation can be seen as an innovative both/and approach that seeks to overcome dichotomous thinking by addressing various justice and reconciliation concerns in compatible ways. However, by limiting its efforts to the issues that arose from crimes committed under the former regimes, the justice and reconciliation endeavour of the Rwandan government fails to reconcile people¿s conflicting narratives of victimhood, which will be essential to transform the existing racialised and politicised ethnic identities of Rwandan people. / Foundation for Advanced Studies on International Development (FASID)

no / A distinction between the deserving and undeserving has been in some respects a distinguishing, and in many others, divisive, feature of the social work profession. The apparent distinction has traditionally been drawn on the basis of ethical and moral appraisals of virtue and vice. This tradition has a much longer pedigree dating from antiquity in which considerations of personal desert were crucial, indeed decisive, in redistributive and retributive justice (Zaitchik 1977). Over the passage of time, moral authority has yielded more and more power to knowledge (Foucault, 1973). Rationality has superseded dogmatism, and the assessment of those eligible for welfare has been well honed. Although income and means tests form the official basis for distributing welfare, whether or not moral desert has been abandoned remains in question. However, how might desert be managed, if it does indeed continue to exert a powerful, albeit covert, influence on claims to state-provided or sponsored welfare? One possible answer to this question follows, first by noting the obvious, though, unappreciated importance of, desert, followed by a discussion of its integral relation to justice, and finally outlining how social work could use it as a normative force. / The full text may be made available on permission from the publisher.

Transitional justice is an essential part of the peacebuilding process, as the need to obtain justice for victims of conflict has been recognised as imperative when constructing peace. Subsequent to the established role of justice, the debate on approaches to justice has emerged. A debate concerned with whether restorative or retributive justice is suitable for the context, as the two are frequently presented as exclusive alternatives in academic debates.   Restorative justice favours inclusion and participation as instruments to repair harm caused by crimes, while retributive justice favours accountability through criminal punishment. This study, aspires to influence the discussion by analysing if the debate on restorative versus retributive justice is present in practice and if there is a trend of implementing restorative approaches to justice in this context. The objective of this study is relevant for transitional justice as there is a debate among scholars on the applicability of restorative justice in transitional societies.    The method of structured, focused comparison is applied to detect which mechanisms are implemented in four Sub-Saharan African post-conflict countries. The countries were selected based on their similarities, as it allows for a focused comparison. The theoretical framework adopted is the TARR-model. The elements of the model are applied as a basis for the structured, focused comparison. Further, the model is used to detect restorative and retributive mechanisms and to assess the restorative basis of transitional justice. The model was selected, as it is the only restorative value-based model available.   The findings detected the approaches to not be exclusive alternatives in practice. Further, a trend of fully restorative approaches to justice was not found in the four cases. However, retributive mechanisms were found to be contributing to restorative outcomes. A trend of combining the two approaches was detected. It is, therefore suggested, future research is conducted on hybrid approaches to justice, local ownership and traditional mechanisms.   Keywords: Restorative Justice, Retributive Justice, Sub-Saharan Africa, Transitional Justice.