Why Transitional Justice Needs to be Conceptualised in Arab States Theoretically as Well as Empirically?

Authors

  • Author

  • Jeremy Sarkin جامعة نوفا دي لشبونة، البرتغال

Keywords:

Transitional Justice, Arab Countries, Democratic Transition, Recognition, Truth Commissions

Abstract

This article aims to explain and review the theoretical and normative contexts of Transitional Justice (TJ). This is done as empirical studies or specific settings particularly in the Arab region need to be rooted much more in TJ theory. The article argues that data and statistics need to be used and evaluated and that there needs to be greater use of methodological processes including empirical studies. It is argued that at present, this is not always the case. Similarly, when models are presented or critiqued by practitioners, little regard is given to TJ theory, or the context within which those models operated. Therefore, it is difficult to see what lessons can be learnt for other places even where the context or circumstances are very similar.

Author Biography

  • Jeremy Sarkin, جامعة نوفا دي لشبونة، البرتغال
    Guest Professor of Law, Universidade NOVA de Lisboa, Portugal and Research Fellow, Department of Criminology, University of the Free Stste, Bloemfontein, South Africa.

References

  1. Teitel Ruti G., "Transitional Justice Genealogy," Harvard Human Right Journal , vol. 16 (Spring 2003), pp. 69-94.
  2. Nelson Mandela, "Foreword," in: Neil J. Kritz (ed.) Transitional Justice: How Emerging Democracies Reckon with Former Regimes , vol. I: General Considerations , (Washington, DC: United States Institute of Peace, 1995), p. xi.
  3. Sebastian Von Einsiedel, "Major Recent Trends in Violent Conflict," United Nations University Centre for Policy Research, Occasional Paper 1 (November 2014), p. 2.
  4. Lotta Themnér & Peter Wallensteen, "Armed Conflicts, 1946–2013," Journal of Peace Research , vol. 51, no. 4 (July 2014), pp. 541–554.
  5. Charles T. Call, & Elizabeth M. Cousens, "Ending Wars and Building Peace: International Responses to War-Torn Societies," International Studies Perspectives , vol. 9, no. 1 (February 2008), pp. 1-21.
  6. The Institute for Economics and Peace (IEP), The Global Peace Index 2016 (Sydney; New York; Brussels; Mexico City: 2016); The Fund for Peace, "The States in the Fragile States Index 2015," (Washington, DC: 2015), at: https://bit.ly/3iUGm6P
  7. Jeremy Sarkin, "The Tension Between Justice and Reconciliation in Rwanda: Politics, Human Rights, Due Process and the Role of Gacaca Courts in Dealing with the Genocide," Journal of African Law , vol. 45, no. 2 (2001), pp. 143-172.
  8. Jeremy Sarkin & Heather Sensibaugh, "Why Achieving Reconciliation in Iraq is Possible: Suggestions for Mechanisms and Processes Including a Truth and Reconciliation Commission," Fletcher Journal of Human Security , vol. 23 (2008), pp. 5-32.
  9. Hugo Van der Merwe, Victoria Baxter & Audrey R. Chapman (eds.), Assessing the Impact of Transitional Justice: Challenges for Empirical Research (Washington, DC: US Institute of Peace Press, 2009).
  10. Claudio Corradetti, Nir Eisikovits & Jack Rotondi (eds.), Theorizing Transitional Justice (London: Ashgate Publishing Ltd, 2015), p. 2.
  11. Oskar N. Thoms, James Ron & Roland Paris, "The Effects of Transitional Justice Mechanisms: A Summary of Empirical Research Findings and Implications for Analysts And Practitioners," in: CIPS Working Paper , Centre for International Policy Studies, Ottawa (2008).
  12. Empirical Research Methodologies of Transitional Justice Mechanisms Conference," November 18-20, 2002, Stellenbosch, South Africa.
  13. Patricia Lundy & Mark McGovern, "Whose Justice? Rethinking Transitional Justice from the Bottom Up," Journal of Law and Society , vol. 35, no. 2 (2008), pp. 265-292.
  14. Lars Waldorf, "Mass Justice for Mass Atrocity: Rethinking Local Justice as Transitional Justice," Temple Law Review , vol. 79, no. 1 (2006).
  15. Elizabeth Stanley, "Transitional Justice: From the Local to the International," in: Patrick Hayden (ed.), The Ashgate Research Companion to Ethics and International Relations (London: Ashgate, 2009), pp. 275-292.
  16. United Nations, The Rule of Law and Transitional Justice in Conflict and Post-conflict Societies , Report of the Secretary-General, UN Doc, 23/8/2004, Paragraph 8, p. 12, accessed on 31/1/2021, at: https://bit.ly/3co3uck
  17. W. Lawrence Neuman, Social Research Methods: Qualitative and Quantitative Approaches , 7 th ed. (London: Pearson, 2014).
  18. Jeremy Sarkin, Carrots and Sticks: The TRC and the South African Amnesty Process (Antwerp: Intersenti, 2004).
  19. Jeremy Sarkin, "Holding Multinational Corporations Accountable for Human Rights and Humanitarian Law Violations Committed during Colonialism and Apartheid: An Evaluation of the Prospects of Such Cases in Light of the Herero of Namibia's Genocide Case and South African Apartheid Cases Being Brought in The United States under the Alien Torts Claims Act," in: Eva Brems & Pieter van der Heede (eds.), Bedrijven en Mensenrechten (Antwerp: Maklu, 2003), p. 174.
  20. Kathryn Sikkink, The Justice Cascade: How Human Rights Prosecutions Are Changing World Politics , The Norton Series in World Politics (New York: WW Norton & Company, 2011).
  21. Linda Keller, "Achieving Peace with Justice: The International Criminal Court and Ugandan Alternative Justice Mechanisms," Connecticut Journal of International Law , vol. 23 (2007), p. 212.
  22. Jessica Almqvist & C. Esposito (eds.), The Role of Courts in Transitional Justice: Voices from Latin America and Spain (New York/ London: Routledge, 2011), p. 39.
  23. Jeremy Sarkin, "Reparation for Past Wrongs: Using Domestic Courts around the World, Especially the United States, to Pursue African Human Rights Claims," International Journal of Legal Information , vol. 32, no. 2 (2004), p. 339.
  24. Sarkin, Carrots and Sticks.
  25. Jeremy Sarkin & Tetevi Davi, "Examining the Criticisms Levelled Against Transitional Justice: Towards an Understanding of the State of the Field," Human Rights and International Legal Discourse , vol. 11, no. 1 (2017), pp. 7–22.
  26. N. Roht Arriaza, "Forward," in: Der Merwe, Baxter & Chapman (eds.).
  27. Alexander Laban Hinton (ed), Transitional Justice: Global Mechanisms and Local Realities After Genocide and Mass Violence (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 2010).
  28. Chandra Lekha Sriram, Confronting Past Human Rights Violations (London: Routledge, 2004).
  29. Colleen Duggan, "'Show Me Your Impact': Evaluating Transitional Justice in Contested Spaces," Evaluation and Program Planning , vol. 35, no. 1 (2012), pp. 199-205.
  30. Jon Elster, Closing the Books: Transitional Justice in Historical Perspective (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004).
  31. Aeyal Gross, Constitution, Reconciliation, and Transitional Justice: Lessons from South Africa and Israel," The Stanford Journal of International Law , vol. 40 (2004), p. 47.
  32. Neil J. Kritz (ed.), Transitional Justice: How Emerging Democracies Reckon with Former Regimes, vol. 1: General Considerations (Washington DC: US Institute of Peace Press, 1995).
  33. Janine Natalya Clark, "Transitional Justice, Truth and Reconciliation: An Under-Explored Relationship," International Criminal Law Review , vol. 11, no. 2 (2011), pp. 241-261.
  34. Erin Daly & Jeremy Sarkin, Reconciliation in Divided Societies: Finding Common Ground (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2011).
  35. Jeremy Sarkin "To Prosecute or not to Prosecute that is the Question? An Examination of the Constitutional and Legal Issues Concerning Criminal Trials," in: Charles Villa-Vicencio & Erik Doxtader (eds.), The Provocations of Amnesty: Memory, Justice and Impunity (Claremont: David Philip Publishers, 2003), pp. 237-264.
  36. Philip Clark, "Establishing a Conceptual Framework: Six Key Transitional Justice Themes," in: Philip Clark & Zachary Kaufman (eds.), After Genocide: Transitional Justice, Post-Conflict Reconstruction and Reconciliation in Rwanda and Beyond (New York: Columbia University Press, 2008), p. 191.
  37. Harvey Weinstein, "Editorial Note: They Myth of Closure, the Illusion of Reconciliation: Final Thoughts on Five Years as Co-Editor-in Chief," International Journal of Transitional Justice , vol. 5, no. 1 (March 2011), pp. 1-10.
  38. Christine Bell, "Transitional Justice, Interdisciplinarity and the State of the 'Field' or 'Non-Field," International Journal of Transitional Justice , vol. 3, no. 1 (2009), pp. 5-27.
  39. Paige Arthur, "How Transitions Reshaped Human Right: A Conceptual History of Transitional Justice," Human Rights Quarterly , vol. 31, no. 2 (2009), p. 324.
  40. Naomi Roht-Arriaza & Javier Mariezcurrena, (eds.), Transitional Justice in the Twenty-first Century: Beyond Truth Versus Justice (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2006).
  41. Tricia D. Olsen et al., "When Truth Commissions Improve Human Rights," International Journal of Transitional Justice , vol. 4, no. 3 (November 2010), pp. 457-476, 459.
  42. Rosemary Nagy, "Transitional Justice as Global Project: Critical Reflections," Third World Quarterly , vol. 29, no. 2 (2008), p. 275.
  43. Jeremy Sarkin, "Refocusing Transitional Justice to Focus Not Only on the Past, But Also to Concentrate on Ongoing Conflicts and Enduring Human Rights Crises," Journal of International Humanitarian Legal Studies , vol. 7, no. 2 (2016), pp. 294-329.
  44. J. S. Abrams & Priscilla B. Hayner, "Documenting, Acknowledging and Publicizing the Truth," in: Mahmoud Cherif Bassiouni (ed.), Post- Conflict Justice (Ardsley, New York: Transnational Publishers, 2002).
  45. David Wippman, "Atrocities, Deterrence, and the Limits of International Justice," Fordham International Law Journal , vol. 23, no. 2 (1999), p. 473.
  46. Jeremy Sarkin, Johan Vande Lanotte & Yves Haeck (eds.), Resolving the Tensions between Crime and Human Rights: European and South African Perspectives (Antwerp: Maklu, 2001).
  47. Diane F. Orentlicher, "Settling Accounts: The Duty to Prosecute Human Rights Violations of a Prior Regime," Yale Law Journal , vol. 100, no. 8 (1991), pp. 2537-2615.
  48. Jaime Malamud-Goti, "Transitional Governments in the Breach: Why Punish State Criminals?" Human Rights Quarterly , vol. 12, no. 1 (1990), p. 6.
  49. Louise Mallinder, "'Amnesties' Challenge to The Accountability Norm," in: Francesca Lessa & Leigh A. Payne (eds.), Amnesty In The Age Of Human Rights Accountability: Comparative And International Perspectives (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012), pp. 69-96.
  50. Martha Minow, Between Vengeance and Forgiveness: Facing History after Genocide and Mass Violence (Boston: Beacon Press, 1998), pp. 19-21.
  51. Lavinia Stan (ed.), Transitional Justice in Eastern Europe and the Former Soviet Union: Reckoning with the Communist Past (London: Routledge, 2008).
  52. Robert Cryer, An Introduction to International Criminal Law and Procedure (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007), p. 561.
  53. Eric Brahm, "Getting to the Bottom of Truth: Evaluating the Contribution of Truth Commissions to Post-Conflict Societies," Paper presented at the Wisconsin Institute for Peace and Conflict Studies, 20 th Annual Conference (October 6-8, 2004).
  54. United Nations, General Assembly, Report of the Special Rapporteur on the Promotion of Truth, Justice, Reparation and Guarantees of Non- recurrence, Pablo de Greiff , 9/8/2012, p. 12, accessed on 11/11/2020, at: https://bit.ly/3jF0QAF
  55. Jeremy Sarkin, "The Interrelationship and Interconnectness of Transitional Justice and the Rule of Law in Uganda: Pursuing Justice, Truth, Guarantees of Non-Repetition, Reconciliation and Reparations for Past Crimes and Human Rights Violations," Hague Journal on the Rule of Law , vol. 7, no. 1 (2015), pp. 111-139.
  56. Jeremy Sarkin, "Providing Reparations in Uganda: Substantive Recommendations for Implementing Reparations in the Aftermath of the Conflicts that Occurred over the Last Few Decades," African Human Rights Law Journal , vol. 14, no. 2 (2014), pp. 526-552.
  57. Jaya Ramji-Nogales, "Designing Bespoke Transitional Justice: A Pluralist Process Approach," Michigan Journal of International Law , vol. 32, no. 1 (2010), p. 21.
  58. Susanne Buckley-Zistel et al. (eds.), Transitional Justice Theories (New York: Routledge, 2013).
  59. Buckley-Zistel et al., "Transitional Justice Theories: An Introduction," in: Buckley-Zistel et al. (eds.).
  60. Kerry Clamp & Jonathan Doak. "More than Words: Restorative Justice Concepts in Transitional Justice Settings," International Criminal Law Review , vol. 12, no. 3 (2012), pp. 339-360.
  61. Anna Macdonald, "From the Ground Up: What does the Evidence Tell us about Local Experiences of Transitional Justice?" Transitional Justice Review , vol. 1, no. 3, Article 4 (2015), accessed on 28/1/2021, at: https://bit.ly/2KURaoH
  62. Van der Merwe, Baxter & Chapman.
  63. Laurel Fletcher & Harvey Weinstein "Context, Timing and the Dynamics of Transitional Justice: A Historical Perspective," Human Rights Quarterly , vol. 32, no. 1 (2008), p. 213.
  64. Thoms, Ron & Paris.
  65. Béatrice Pouligny, Bernard Doray & Jean-clément Martin. "After Mass Crime: Methodological and Ethical Problems: A Trans-Disciplinary Approach," in: Béatrice Pouligny, Simon Chesterman & Albrecht Schnabel (eds.), After Mass Crime: Rebuilding States and Communities (New York: United Nations University Press, 2007).
  66. Pouligny, Doray & Martin.
  67. David Backer, "Cross-National Comparative Analysis," in: Hugo van der Merwe, Victoria Baxter & Audrey R. Chapman, Assessing the Impact of Transitional Justice: Challenges for Empirical Research (Washington DC: United States Institute for Peace Press, 2009), pp. 29-90.
  68. Paloma Aguilar, Laia Balcells, & Hector Cebolla-Boado, "Determinants of Attitudes Toward Transitional Justice: An Empirical Analysis of the Spanish Case," Comparative Political Studies , vol. 44, no. 10 (2011), pp. 1397-1430.
  69. Ruben Carranza, "Plunder and Pain: Should Transitional Justice Engage with Corruption and Economic Crimes?" International Journal of Transitional Justice , vol. 2, no. 3 (2008), pp. 310-330.
  70. Matthew Evans, "Structural Violence, Socioeconomic Rights, and Transformative Justice," Journal of Human Rights , vol. 15, no. 1 (2015), pp. 1-20.
  71. Wendy Lambourne & Viviana Rodriguez Carreon, "Engendering Transitional Justice: A Transformative Approach to Building Peace and Attaining Human Rights for Women," Human Rights Review , vol. 1, no. 17 (2015), pp. 71-93.
  72. S. Robins & E. Wilson, "Participatory Methodologies with Victims: An Emancipatory Approach to Transitional Justice Research," Canadian Journal of Law and Society / Revue Canadienne Droit et Société , vol. 30, no. 2 (2015), pp. 219-236.
  73. P. Gready & S. Robins, "Justice: A New Agenda for Practice," International Journal of Transitional Justice , vol. 3, no. 8 (2014), pp. 339-361.
  74. Jeremy Sarkin & Tetevi Davi, "The Togolese Truth, Justice and Reconciliation Commission: Lessons for Transitional Justice Processes Elsewhere," Peace and Conflict Studies , vol. 24, no.1 (2017b.), pp. 1-27.
  75. S. Elizabeth Bird & Fraser M. Ottanelli, The Performance of Memory as Transitional Justice (Antwerp: Intersentia, 2014), p. 26.

Downloads

PDF (Hosted in Arabic)
HTML (Arabic)

Published

2020-11-01

Usage statistics

38 views 47 downloads

Issue

Vol. 8 No. 047 (2020): Issue 047

Section

Studies

License

Copyright (c) 2020 Jeremy Sarkin (Author)

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.