Truth and Justice

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Truth and Justice

• Professor Neil Mitchell

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Outline

• Rhoda Howard-Hassman Wed 2nd May, 2pm MacRobert
  252 Reparations to Africa
• Amnesty
• Truth Commissions
• Domestic Courts
• My Lai
• International Criminal Court

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Forgetting

• Algerian Amnesty
• Approved by referendum 2005
• Officially no amnesty for those involved in
  mass murder, rape and bombings

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Truth Commissions

• Purposes
• Organisation
• Establishment
• Composition
• Operating Procedures

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Achievements and Shortcomings

• Achievements
• Truth
• Justice what is it?
• Shortcomings
• Terms of inquiry

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Agents and Strategic Motives

• Motivation of acts Post war Italy a most
  unfortunate and grotesque distinction was drawn
  between ordinary tortures and tortures that were
  particularly atrocious. Using this formula the
  courts were able to pardon the following crimes
  the multiple rape of a woman partisan a partisan
  tied to a roof who was punched and kicked
  electric torture on the genitals applied through
  a field telephone. On this case the Corte di
  Cazzatione .. Ruled that the tortures took place
  only for intimidatory purposes and not through
  bestial insensibility In the Danish trials of
  collaborators after WWII, this priority was
  reversed. Those who mistreated or killed
  individuals for personal motives or pique were
  less likely to get the death penalty than those
  who did so to serve German interests. The worst
  Danish torturer escaped execution because the
  Supreme Court found that his actions were due to
  sadistic perversion of sexual drives The
  mentally disturbed cannot be evilJon Elster
  Closing the Books Transitional Justice in
  Historical Perspective (Cambridge University
  Press 2004, 162).
• No Truth Commissions in Mozambique and Cambodia

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Truth Commissions
Commission Date Period Investigated
Uganda 1974 1971-74
Bolivia 1982-84 1967-82
Argentina 1983-84 1976-83
Uruguay 1985 1973-82
Zimbabwe 1985 1983
Uganda 1986-95 1962-86
Nepal 1990-91 1961-1990
Chile 1990-91 1973-1990
Chad 1991-92 1982-1990
South Africa 1992 1979-1991
Germany 1992-94 1949-89
El Salvador 1992-1993 1980-91
South Africa 1993 1979-91
Sri Lanka 1994-97 1988-1994
Haiti 1995-96 1991-1994
Burundi 1995-96 1993-1995
South Africa 1995-2000 1960-1994
Ecuador 1996-2000 1979-1996
Guatemala 1997-1999 1962-1996
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Commission Date Period Investigated
Nigeria 1999-2000 1966-1999
South Korea 2000-2003 past authoritarian regimes
Panama 2001-02 1968-1988
Peru 2001-03 1980-2000
Ghana 2002 1957-1993
Sierra Leone 2000-05 1991-1999
East Timor 2001-05 1974-1999
Source Landman, Studying Human Rights, 2006, p108 Source Landman, Studying Human Rights, 2006, p108 Source Landman, Studying Human Rights, 2006, p108
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Domestic Justice

• What Happened at My Lai?
• So whose interests do domestic courts serve?

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ICC

• 1998 Rome Statute
• Pinochet Case 1998 The Pinochet case was a
  contagious example No one could accuse the
  British law lords of being part of an
  international socialist conspiracy Uruguayan
  Human Rights Leader NYT 1/9/05
• Structure
• Jurisdiction
• Genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes,
  aggressive war
• Cases after July 2002
• US opposition

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ICC

• Cases
• Compare to alternatives

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Next week

• Include in core reading Thomas Risse and Kathryn
  Sikkink, The Power of Human Rights International
  Norms and Domestic Change,Cambridge University
  Press 1999 ch 1 and one other chapter.
• Revision after lecture