For inspiration from amazing women who work for solidarity actions to assist the dis-empowered and vulnerable persons, including refugees, minorities, persons subjected to solitary confinement, and victims of atrocity crimes seeking truth, please see the video from the 2022 ASIL Roundtable including Noura Erakat, Maha Hillal, Azadeh Shashahani, Nia Houston, chaired by Cecilia Bailliet. The video is available here
transitional justice
April 18 – Ukraine Panel
Please join us for this upcoming panel on the conflict in Ukraine – organized by the American Society of International Law, Transitional Justice and the Rule of Law Interest Group, and co-sponsored by the AALS International Law and International Human Rights Law Sections.
April 18, 2022
12:00 p.m. – 1:00 p.m. EST
The Ukraine Conflict: Expert Roundtable on Transitional Justice and International Criminal Law Issues
Organized by the Transitional Justice and Rule of Law Interest Group, American Society of International Law; co-sponsored by the AALS International Law and International Human Rights Law Sections
Panelists:
Milena Sterio, The Charles R. Emrick Jr. – Calfee Halter & Griswold Professor of Law, Cleveland-Marshall College of Law (moderator)
Vladyslav Lanovoy, Professor, Law Faculty, Universite Laval (Canada)
Pavlo Pushkar, Head of Division, Department for the Execution of Judgments, European Court of Human Rights
Margaret deGuzman, James E. Beasley Professor of Law, Temple University Beasley School of Law and Judge of the Residual Mechanism for International Criminal Tribunals
Rebecca Hamilton, Associate Professor, Washington College of Law, American University
Leila Sadat, James Carr Professor of International Criminal Law, Washington University School of Law and Special Advisor on Crimes Against Humanity to the ICC Prosecutor
Milena Sterio is inviting you to a scheduled Zoom meeting.
Zoom Information:
Join Zoom Meeting
https://csuohio.zoom.us/j/84851000100
Meeting ID: 848 5100 0100
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Interview with Professor Mark Drumbl (Part-1)
Professor Mark Drumbl serves as Director of the Transnational Law Institute of Washington and Lee University, USA. He has held visiting appointments and has taught at Queen’s University Belfast, Oxford University (University College), Université de Paris (Panthéon- Assas), VU Amsterdam, and various other prestigious universities throughout the globe. His research and teaching interests include public international law, global environmental governance, international criminal law, post-conflict justice, and transnational legal process. Professor Drumbl’s articles have appeared in the NYU, Michigan, Northwestern, George Washington, Tulane, and North Carolina law reviews, many peer-review journals, including Human Rights Quarterly, with shorter pieces in the American Journal of International Law and numerous other periodicals.
Professor Drumbl’s first book, Atrocity, Punishment, and International Law, which was published by Cambridge University Press, has received critical acclaim. Later on, he went on to write or edit two more books titled Reimagining Child Soldiers in International Law and Policy (OUP) and Research Handbook on Child Soldiers (Edward Elgar Press) in 2012 and 2019 respectively. He is co-authoring a book on informers and transitional justice to be published by Oxford University Press in 2022. His work on Rwanda has been reviewed as “exemplary” in its treatment of “the possibilities of the coexistence of victims and survivors within the same society after the event” by the Times Literary Supplement in its Learned Journals review.
I had the honor of interviewing him. I thank him for the interesting conversation that touched upon various topics from child soldiers to ecocide. The transcribed version of the interview is available below.
1.What interested you to take up international law as your study in college times?
When I was an undergraduate student, I studied political science and philosophy. Then, I did some graduate work in comparative politics; and, from then, I went on to law school. Actually, when I was in law school, I did not take many public international law classes. I took corporate and business law classes. Then I worked for a number of years at large law firms doing arbitration and corporate law work in New York and Toronto. In that context, I specifically developed an interest in transnational and international disputes and arrangements. One coincidence that occurred – I had an opportunity to work on a pro bono file that involved investigations of wrongdoing by the Canadian Army and peacekeepers. In peacekeeping work, the Canadians were implicated in the United Nations’ mission in Somalia, which led to a major public enquiry and I along with the senior partner of the firm I was working at became involved with that. It related to questions of war crimes and peacekeepers. At that point, I became quite interested in the role of law and public enquiries as a deterrent to human rights abuses.
During my work as a practitioner, I decided to pursue the goal of becoming a professor. When I started my doctoral work at Columbia University, I was interested in international economic law. I actually started off on that note. By absolute coincidence and serendipity, I unexpectedly had a last second opportunity to go to Rwanda and do defense work in genocide trials several years after the genocide against the Tutsi. I jumped at the opportunity at the last second, took time off from my graduate work and went to Rwanda. When I arrived there, I was so excited about how proper criminal trials could encourage processes of national reconciliation. I had about 250 clients while working in Rwanda, and I left with a much deeper sense of skepticism about the potential and possibility of international criminal law. I came back to New York and wrote an article based on my experience. I found it so gripping to write that piece that I changed the entire focus of my doctoral programme to international criminal law. Two decades later, I work and teach in the same field. That interest stuck for me. The bottom line is that a completely serendipitous opportunity presented and re-routed all my interest. Hence, I highly recommend younger folks to be very open to coincidences and randomness because sometimes things ‘just happen.’
2. What were your thoughts after reading the Ongwen judgment? Were there instances in the judgment that could have been reconsidered in terms of the sentencing or any other aspect?
One of my major academic interests for many years has been to think about the role of ordinary people, compromised people, and victims who despite their victim status – their meekness and weakness – in turn may come to victimize others. In other words: how to speak of ordinary people who inflict tremendous pain on others? That has led me to a sustained academic interest to these kinds of characters such as very low-level perpetrators in Rwanda, child soldiers, collaborators and informers to name a few. All this brings me to Ongwen and my interest in that trial. For me, Ongwen comes under the category of victims who victimize. Ongwen was probably nine years old, kidnapped on his way from school into the LRA, brutalized and beaten. He was socialized into one of the most violent organizations and it is heartbreaking to say that his deployment of violence was a skill that he developed so as to not only survive in the LRA but also thrive as he rose to a high-level position of Brigadier Commander. Throughout his journey in the LRA, he moved from a powerless victim to a powerful victimizer. Just the other day, the ICC sentenced him to twenty-five years’ imprisonment.
When I think about the criminal process against him, what I see and think to some extent is an individual scarred by his socialization into violence as a young boy — how does that figure or compute in conversations about this criminal responsibility? My main reaction after the Ongwen trial is that the criminal process does not deal well with these tragic, imperfect victims. The prosecution vastly overstates his free will, his intentionality and tends to downplay his socialization. The defense overstates his infirmity, weakness and malleability. In the Ongwen trial, the prosecutorial narrative dominated and he was presented as one of the most serious persons responsible for tremendous violence. My major concern is if law is going to deal with an enormous condition precedent to mass atrocity, namely the involvement of tragic figures such as Ongwen, I think we have to have a more candid conversation about the actuality of the perpetrator. I also think we need to have a more candid conversation about the imperfect nature of the ICC and the act of prosecuting. Ongwen would never have been prosecuted unless the prosecution skirted the violence of the Ugandan Government. The ICC has seemed to develop a specialty of prosecuting mid-level rebel leaders whose rebellions fail against governments. I cannot help but wonder whether international criminal law would do better and be more inclusive and effective if we recognized all around that those who deliver justice sometimes have to compromise and those who inflict tremendous pain may themselves be compromised souls.
3. Do you think transitional justice should be considered as important as prosecuting and imprisoning the accused in the international justice system? How much progress have we made towards the same?
I have long believed that mechanisms other than criminal trials are crucial. Truth commissions, commemorations, local ceremonies, education, constitutional reforms and so on. I think all of those can serve transformative goals. Unfortunately, I think the dominating narrative of international criminal justice and accountability has actually become colonized by the courtroom and adversarialism. I think that process needs to become more inclusive of alternate mechanisms. While working on issues of abuse and gender, one thing that I have noticed is that societies in which international criminal trials have been brought as methods of post-conflict reconstruction are not necessarily more equitable, more inclusive, more embracing of cultures, juvenile rights, gender equality and equality such as that based on such as physical or perceived physical ability, identity, and I am left with a lingering sense that perhaps alternate justice mechanisms may not only deliver accountability for the past but may actually embed a more just society in the future. That is a very important goal to me.
To be continued…
‘Last resort:’ A final course of action, used only when all else has failed (Oxford Dictionary).
The Seventeenth Assembly of States Parties (ASP) has closed and one key takeaway is the need to have realistic expectations with respect to the role and capacity of the International Criminal Court (ICC) or ‘Court.’ This theme was woven into numerous side-events, especially those concerning complementarity and universal jurisdiction. 2018 marks the 20th anniversary of the Rome Statute. While the ICC continues to grow in its reach and impact, the institution has inherent and purposeful limitations. A fair assessment of the Court needs to be couched in terms of its intended scope, purpose, and place in the global landscape, which is highly specific.
At the side-event “Justice, peace and security in Africa: deepening the role of the ICC,” hosted by the Coalition for the International Criminal Court and the African Network on International Criminal Justice, Phakiso Mochochoko (Office of the Prosecutor [OTP]) emphasized that the first question should never be, “Why isn’t the ICC doing something?” Such questions can and should be asked of the state and its institutions first. The ICC was never intended to be a first-responder or a sole responder.[1]The trigger mechanism for the Court’s involvement relies on the unwillingness or inability of the concerned state to investigate and prosecute those most responsible for atrocious crimes. This requires a lack of political will, a lack of capacity, or both. The scope is intentionally and inherently limited. Several side-events at the ASP reiterated that the ICC is one judicial mechanism for accountability, and one of last resort.[2]Scholars and practitioners need to focus on states, which have a primary obligation to investigate and prosecute these crimes in the interest of peace and security.
To this end, at the side-event “Complementarity and Cooperation Revisited: What role for the ICC in supporting national and hybrid investigations and prosecutions?” hosted by Luxembourg, North Korea, and Open Society Justice Initiative, Pascal Turlan (OTP) highlighted the importance of capacity building. Capacity building refers to both the legal framework and training of personnel in domestic institutions. Pascal sketched a coordinated relationship between the ICC and national mechanisms under the auspice of ‘positive complementarity.’ The ICC is willing to engage in cooperation measures such as information sharing or to engage in mutual assistance strategies in an effort to encourage national authorities to develop cases, or to assist in the investigation or prosecution of cases.[3]As noted above, if the ICC can prosecute, they can only do so against persons who bear the greatest responsibility for the alleged crimes. It would be up to national institutions to investigate and prosecute all others responsible and hold them criminally accountable. Theoretically, positive complementarity is highly useful in this regard and it should contribute to the proliferation of accountability and justice.
Similarly, at the event titled “Commemorating the 20thanniversary of the Rome Statute,” H.E. Kimberly Prost expressed that complementarity should involve domestic, regional, and extra-territorial jurisdictions to battle impunity. She explained that this may require innovative solutions, such as those like the new court in Central African Republic and the IIIM in Syria, for example. Judge Prost said that productive dialogue cannot begin and end with a critique of the Court. Since no state can credibly oppose justice, alternative solutions need to be pursued. The capacity of states needs to be built so that the ICC becomes redundant, as intended by the drafters of the Rome Statute. Judge Prost’s contributions reflect a ‘back to basics’ approach. Complementarity is the bedrock of the Rome Statute System but is often neglected. This subjects the ICC to criticism and claims that it is not doing enough. States should look inward first to find ways to investigate and prosecute, either independently or with cooperative assistance and support from the ICC and/or other institutional mechanisms and/or organizations.
Similar views were expressed by Karim Kham, Alain Werner and Carmen Cheung at the side-event “Closing the impunity gap: a pragmatic approach to universal jurisdiction.” Each one of these panelists explained that extra-territorial/judicial mechanisms, ad hoc tribunals, or other similar mechanisms are not mutually exclusive with the ICC. Karim said that it is important to reiterate that the ICC does not have a monopoly on justice. He explained that the goal is to close the impunity gap by whichever way(s) possible because justice is not politicized, it is ‘everybody’s business.’
The ICC plays an important role in the global landscape, but as pointed out by the intervention of Elise Keppler of Human Rights Watch at the side-event, “From Bemba to Rombhot: Reflections & Perspectives for the ICC in the Central African Republic,” the ‘one case, one suspect’ approach is likely insufficient for dealing with the broader realities of conflict. It is posed here that an ideal complementary schema might have national courts investigate and prosecute foot soldiers, a special/hybrid tribunal address mid-level officers and commanders, and the ICC deal with those most responsible for organizing and orchestrating the crime(s). This would be comprehensive and provide a greater possibility for accountability at all levels and sides of the conflict. Although social justice and legal justice are not the same, greater accountability and a strengthening of the rule of law at the local level can contribute to a (more) stable post-conflict environment.
A holistic approach to justice will demand more than the ICC can provide. The Court is limited in its monetary and human resources, as well as its jurisdiction and scope. This is not to say that it has no utility or value. Rather, a more nuanced approach to complementarity can present important opportunities for justice and accountability by capacity building, strengthening domestic legal systems, and closing impunity gaps. This is an important step towards the goal of universal jurisdiction for atrocious crime. Framing critiques of the ICC within the principle of complementarity and universal jurisdiction can change the conversation in some significant and important ways. The ICC cannot do everything, nor is it supposed to. The potential role for complementary mechanisms to the ICC may be the best way to move the conversation (and the international criminal justice project) forward.
This blogpost and my attendance at the 17thAssembly of States Parties are supported by the Canadian Partnership for International Justice and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.
[1]The Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, A/CONF.183/9 (17 July 1998): Preamble, Article 17, “The case is being investigated or prosecuted by a State which has jurisdiction over it, unless the State is unwilling or unable genuinely to carry out the investigation or prosecution.”
[2]This was a strong focus at the December 5 side-event, “Commemorating the 20thanniversary of the Rome Statute,” co-hosted by the Netherlands, Uganda, and Africa Legal Aid. This was a focus of H.E Kimberly Prost.
[3]There are limitations to this, for example the ICC will not share information if the alleged suspect could receive the death penalty, or if basic rule-of-law principles such as a right to a fair trial are not firmly established in the domestic context.
ILAC launches report of Guatemalan justice sector and calls to extend CICIG’s mandate
We at the International Legal Assistance Consortium (ILAC) launched our assessment report of the justice sector in Guatemala on October 10, in Washington D.C., and on November 6, in London (the report is available both in English and Spanish). ILAC, established in 2002, is an NGO based in Stockholm, Sweden, which conducts rule of law and justice sector assessments, coordinates programs, and engages in policy dialogue. As a consortium of over 50 professional legal organizations along with individual experts, we gather legal expertise and competencies from various contexts and legal traditions to help rebuild justice institutions and promote the rule of law in conflict-affected and fragile states.
ILAC’s report of Guatemalan justice sector
ILAC’s assessment team traveled to Guatemala in October 2017, and met with over 150 Guatemalan judges, prosecutors, lawyers, human rights defenders, and business leaders to assess the role and capacity of courts and prosecutorial services. The team also examined several thematic issues facing the justice sector in Guatemala today, including the legacy of Guatemala’s conflict and impunity, disputes involving development projects on land claimed by indigenous peoples and local communities, criminalization of protests, and violence and discrimination.
“A fragile peace”
Although Guatemala has been at peace for over 20 years, its history of inequality and a civil war that lasted over 30 years have left a legacy of impunity, corruption, racism, and violence which fundamentally threaten stability and equitable development. Since 2006, however, justice sector actors have been supported by the United Nations-backed International Commission against Impunity in Guatemala (known as CICIG) which aims to investigate criminal groups undermining democracy. CICIG may conduct independent investigations, act as a complementary prosecutor, and recommend public policies to help fight the criminal groups that are the subject of its investigations. This is an innovative institution for the United Nations and is unique in the sense that it combines international support, independence to investigate cases, and partnerships with the Guatemalan Attorney General’s Office.
While the assessment report identifies ongoing rule of law challenges in Guatemala, it highlights the vital role CICIG and its current Commissioner, Mr. Iván Velásquez of Colombia, play in supporting the Attorney General’s Office to address the identified challenges. In fact, the majority of our recommendations are reliant upon CICIG’s continued presence in Guatemala as the country’s judiciary is not yet equipped to address and resolve corruption and impunity on its own. The American Bar Association, an ILAC member, has stated that:
it would be impossible to instill the rule of law within Guatemala at this time without the support of an international body. While many prosecutors and judges have – at great personal risk – performed their responsibilities with integrity, the pressures on the criminal justice sector writ large are so great that it is not currently able to operate independently without international support.
An abrupt end to CICIG’s mandate may also potentially result in backsliding of judicial and prosecutorial independence and integrity. Our report therefore includes a specific recommendation for a four-year extension of CICIG’s mandate.
In light of this recommendation, it is also worth noting that CICIG currently enjoys widespread public support in Guatemala and, according to a recent report by the International Crisis Group, “is a rare example of a successful international effort to strengthen a country’s judicial system and policing.”
ILAC joins call to extend CICIG’s mandate
Our assessment report comes at a crucial time as the future of CICIG is in jeopardy. In August, Guatemala’s President Jimmy Morales announced that he would not extend CICIG’s mandate beyond its current expiration date in September 2019 (note that CICIG is currently investigating President Morales for illegal campaign financing). President Morales simultaneously barred Mr. Velásquez, who at the time was in the United States, from re-entering Guatemala. Subsequently, President Morales ignored an order by Guatemala’s Constitutional Court allowing Mr. Velásquez to return (the Constitutional Court has reaffirmed that order just this past Thursday). President Morales has also developed a rhetoric accusing CICIG of presenting “a threat to peace” in Guatemala and constructing “a system of terror.”
Our report is an acknowledgement of CICIG’s role in laying the foundation for a stronger and more resilient judicial system in Guatemala. And, in order to continue to build upon this foundation, we join the call for Guatemala to recommit to the work of CICIG under Mr. Velásquez and for an extension of CICIG’s mandate.
While we are neither the first nor the only observer to point out these challenges to the rule of law, we hope that the report will provide clear notice to state authorities that failure to address the documented and well-understood obstacles to the independence and effectiveness of the justice sector can only be taken as unwillingness to strengthen the rule of law in Guatemala. Without an effective and independent system of justice, the rule of law and human rights cannot be secured.
In a future post we will elaborate upon how the current situation in Guatemala reflects the challenges and opportunities for promoting justice globally in the context of the United Nations 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, and particularly SDG 16.
To learn more, you can read the report press release here.
You can follow ILAC on Twitter here.
Feminism and the Kenyan TJRC (Part 2)
Women singing at the launch of the TJRC public hearings in Garissa (April 2011) (Kenyan TJRC)
Addressing the first feminist critique – the failure to address systemic and structural violence that tends to affect women disproportionately – was easier for us to address compared to other truth commissions given our broad mandate and, in particular, the requirement that we investigate violations of socioeconomic rights. To better analyze systemic and structural issues, including those related to socio-economic rights, we needed to address effectively the second critique – the failure to encourage active participation of women, a failure that had already been experienced by the Mutua Task Force.
In addition to dedicating specific parts of our statement-taking form to capturing the experience of women; training our statement takers on gender sensitivity, and ensuring a high percentage of female statement takers (43 percent), we also conducted thirty-nine of what we called women’s hearings in each of the places where we held public hearings. Our challenge was not just to encourage women to participate and speak to the Commission, but also to elicit testimony about violations and related issues experienced by them. The experience of previous truth commissions suggests that women who are willing to speak about past violations tend to speak as witnesses and observers concerning incidents that happened to others, usually the male members of their family. The characterization of such testimony as indirect is itself problematic, as it tends to de-emphasize the secondary effects of violations on family members and community members and more fundamentally emphasize the individualistic, rather than community-oriented, aspect of violations. While women may testify about what happened to others in their family or community because they are reluctant to testify about themselves, they may also focus on violations directly experienced by their family and community members because they see themselves as part of those larger social entities and, thus, are more likely than men to see such violations of “others” as affecting them, their families, and their communities directly. Nevertheless, we were concerned that some women might feel reluctant to share their own direct experiences of violations out of fear rather than because they adopted a more holistic approach to violations and their effects.
In addition to holding women’s hearings in each place where we held public hearings, we often had a prominent woman activist from each community testify about the experience of women generally in that community. We were able to do this in part because of the strong working relationship we had developed with Maendeleo ya Wanawake, the largest women’s membership organization in Kenya. We were thus able to explore at the local level some of the broader systemic, institutional, and cultural issues faced by women. To further broaden this analysis, we devoted one of our national thematic hearings to women. The purpose of the thematic hearing was to supplement the individual stories we had heard in the field – both from witnesses as well as local activists – with a more national and even international perspective on the broader systemic issues facing women in Kenya. Continue reading
Cautionary tales for the Mueller Probe from the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia
Photo by the National Archives and Records Administration
“I just can’t wait to hear the final report of the Mueller probe!”
Even those not normally interested in the intricate details of complex legal investigations have found themselves obsessed with the criminal investigation at the center of our nation’s political drama—the Special Counsel Investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election, or the Mueller probe.
Both sides of the political aisle are awash with speculation about what the final report might reveal (and it’s probably as damning as whatever is in Donald Trump’s tax returns). Whatever you think it might disclose, we all seem convinced that the investigation will prove to the American public once and for all just what was going on during the 2016 election.
But international justice offers a cautionary tale about the ability of criminal justice mechanisms to draw a line in the sand about political events.
Very popular criminals
The International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia
In 1993, the United Nations established the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) in order to try those most responsible for the crimes committed during the Balkans wars of the 1990s. In December 2017, it sentenced former Bosnian Serb general Ratko Mladić, also known as “the Butcher of Bosnia,” to life imprisonment for genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity. Justice, one might infer, had been served. Who could deny the atrocities now?
After the Mladić verdict, in Srebrenica—a town whose name became synonymous with the 1995 genocide—mayor : “Mladić will be remembered in history and this sentence only strengthens his myth among the Serb nation, which is grateful to him for saving it from persecution and extermination.” For a little less than half of the Bosnian population, Mladić is not a war criminal: he is a hero.
Denials about atrocities of the war are typical and commonplace in the Balkans, even of infamous events like Srebrenica. Despite 2.5 million pages of court transcripts, the ICTY’s findings are not always accepted as true among the people for whom it was established.
There are many theories about why Bosnians have not internalized the ICTY rulings. Some argue that the trials and the judgments were too lengthy, complicated and legalistic for people to understand—the court is located far away in The Hague and the proceedings are conducted in English and French. People in the former Yugoslav simply didn’t watch the trials or read the verdicts. Some point the finger at nationalist elites, politicians and journalists, who used confusion about the ICTY rulings for their own benefit. Still others point out that the defendants were allowed to hijack the trials and use them as political platforms, undermining the ICTY’s ability to communicate with the public.
But the truth was that being subjects of international indictments for war crimes did not really lessen the popularity of any of the Balkans leaders among their constituencies. Continue reading
Launching the Spring Issue of the Transitional Justice Institute Research Paper Series on SSRN
Catherine O’Rourke and Elise Ketelaars
We are pleased to announce the publication of a new issue of the Ulster University Transitional Justice Institute Research Paper Series on the Social Sciences Research Network. This exciting new issue engages both with highly-topical contemporary questions, as well as long-standing challenges in international law, peace, human rights and gender equality. First off, Thomas Obel Hansen considers the Policy Paper of the ICC on preliminary examinations and its potential to advance ‘positive complementarity’ between the operation of the court and the domestic pursuit of justice for conflict victims. At a time of apparent crisis for the court, scholarship such as Hansen’s that addresses this critical relationship between its operation and broader domestic impacts is critical. Aisling Swaine, the leading global expert in National Action Plans (NAPs) for Women, Peace and Security, examines relevant practice to date in the Asia-Pacific region. She demonstrates an exciting new methodology for gender-responsive planning, which has relevance well beyond the specifics of Asia Pacific, namely the ‘Gender Needs Analysis Tool’. Likewise, the findings, conclusions and recommendations offer immediate policy relevance to the current 63 UN member states with NAPs on Women, Peace and Security, as well as those currently developing or reviewing NAPs.
Contributions by Catherine O’Rourke and the joint article by Anne Smith, Monica McWilliams and Priyamvada Yarnell both address the question of international human rights obligations and their current and potential impact on Northern Ireland. Catherine O’Rourke, in research from the DFID-funded Political Settlements Research Programme, considers the recent report of the UN Special Rapporteur on Truth, Justice, Reparations and Guarantees of Non-recurrence on his country visit to Northern Ireland. She identifies the potential for the report to positively re-shape both the diagnostic (defining the problem) and prognostic (identifying the solutions) framing of the vexed issue of how to deliver accountability for past conflict killings and harms in Northern Ireland. Finally, Anne Smith, Monica McWilliams and Priyamvada Yarnell engage with the highly topical challenges of protecting human rights in Northern Ireland as the UK advances its withdrawal from the European Union. In a timely and important contribution, the authors consider how the long-promised Bill of Rights for Northern Ireland might finally be advanced as part of broader efforts to ensure continued human rights protections in the midst of Brexit.
The Bystander Dilemma
Debates about conflict, crime and accountability often center on the victims and the perpetrators — protection of victims; search for, prosecution and punishment of perpetrators; compensation, restitution and acknowledgement for victims. These are, of course, essential questions and issues. But any situation of violence, from random street crime to the largest atrocities, involves a more complex cast of characters than the two main protagonists. Examining the roles, potential and obligations of that vast space between victim and perpetrator offers an opportunity to explore challenging questions about human security, responsibility, and the intersection between law, morality and the social contract.
I had the great privilege of participating in just such a conversation last Friday at the University of Utah Law Review symposium on The Bystander Dilemma: The Holocaust, War Crimes, and Sexual Assaults. The symposium was inspired by Utah Law Professor Amos Guiora’s remarkable new book, The Crime of Complicity: The Bystander in the Holocaust. Professor Guiora’s book is an intellectually challenging and deeply personal exploration of the legal and moral obligations of bystanders, based on the experiences of his parents, Holocaust survivors from Hungary.
Over the course of three panels — on the Holocaust, situations of conflict and mass atrocities, and sexual assault — and a keynote, the symposium wove together old and new conversations about several critical thematic questions. Who is a bystander? Where is the line between bystander and perpetrator or between bystander and potential victim? How do these lines affect how we view a bystander’s obligations — or perhaps how the bystander him- or herself views any such obligations? Why does the bystander matter and, most directly linked to Professor Guiora’s book, why is there a disconnect between the bystander’s moral and legal obligations?
Particularly interesting was the breadth of ways in which one might consider the bystander and for what reasons, all of which matter to any consideration of moral or legal obligations and consequences. First, and perhaps most instinctive, we think of the bystander in the context of protecting the victim of a crime — someone who can alert the authorities or even stop the violence in some way. This links directly to the second — preventing violence and crimes. If a bystander speaks up in some way, the attack or crime is less likely to happen.
But the discussions and exploration of the bystander dilemma ranged far beyond this direct relationship. A third component focuses on assigning responsibility to act, whether moral or legal responsibility. The central call of Professor Guiora’s new book is for a legal obligation for bystanders to alert authorities or otherwise intervene to protect the victim of a crime. Fourth, the bystander conversation is also about identifying capability — who has the capability to act to help a victim, to stop a crime, to prevent violence, and how does the nature of that capability affect the content of any such obligation?
Call for Papers: Transnational Criminal Law in America
- What are the most pressing transnational criminal law issues facing the Americas today and how are these issues evolving and shifting?
- Should greater emphasis be placed on regional responses to transnational criminal law and how should such regional responses be structured?
- What assumptions underlie the current legal regimes addressing transnational crime and do they adequately reflect the reality of transnational criminality today?
Interested in answering these questions, or those similar to it? The University of Windsor (curated by Professor Sara Wharton) invites you to submit a your answers! Individuals chosen will have the opportunity to present their ideas at the Transnational Criminal Law in the Americas Conference May 4-5, 2017 at the University of Windsor Ontario, Canada.
Those interested in presenting at the conference are invited to apply by email to tljnconference2017@uwindsor.ca no later than January 20, 2017.
Applications should include:
- an abstract of 300 words maximum
- your name(s), affiliation(s) and contact information
- a short biography
For more information click here!
IntLawGrrls 