Human Rights Syllabi - Truth, Reconciliation and Justice in Democratizing Countries

Truth, Reconciliation and Justice in Democratizing Countries
ANTHROPOLOGY 298
UNIVERSITY OF CONNECTICUT
Autumn 2003

Professor Richard A Wilson
Room 405, Dept. of Anthropology
Email: Richard.Wilson@uconn.edu

The aim of this course is to examine the politics of truth, reconciliation and justice in democratizing countries of Africa and Latin America. How does a country deal with the perpetrators of gross human rights violations and provide proper redress to victims? Even before that, how is it decided who is a victim, or how guilt should be attributed? We begin some foundational discussions of human rights and justice and examine the way in which the Nuremberg trials established crimes against humanity and individual human rights in international law. The Cold War froze the advances of Nuremberg and was characterized by internal conflicts that targeted civilian non-combatants. Amnesty laws came in the wake of these internal conflicts and in response, truth commissions were established to provide some record of the violations of the past. We evaluate the ability of Truth and Reconciliation Commissions to write a definitive truth of the authoritarian era and to contribute to building the rule of law. We compare the South African experience with that in Latin America, where the room for maneuver of truth commissions has been more limited. The course concludes by examining the increasing role of international human rights tribunals, especially the International Criminal Court and the UN Criminal Tribunals on Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia.

Course requirements: In-class participation and a presentation will compromise 40% of your grade. A 15-20 page final term paper will constitute 60% of your grade. The deadline for submitting term papers is 12 noon on Friday, December 5th.

Books with an asterisk are the main texts for the course and are being ordered from the Coop bookstore.

Session One: Human Rights and the Ideal of Global Justice

*Robertson, Geoffrey. 1999. Crimes Against Humanity. NY: Penguin. Chapter 1, 'The Human Rights Story'. pp. 1-34.

*Barahona de Brito, Alexandra et al, eds., 2001. The Politics of Memory. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Introduction, pp. 1-39.

*Minow, Martha. 1998. Between Vengeance and Forgiveness. Boston: Beacon Press. Chapter 1 'Introduction' and Chapter 2 'Vengeance and Forgiveness.' Pp. 1-24.

Ignatieff, Michael. 2001. Human Rights as Politics and Idolatry. Chapters 1-2 'Human Rights as Politics' and 'Human Rights as Idolatry'. Pp. 3-53.

Session Two: Nuremberg and 'Crimes Against Humanity'

Marrus, Michael. 1997. Nuremberg War Crimes Trial of 1945-6. Boston, Mass: Bedford
Books. Chapter 7, 'Crimes Against Humanity', pp. 185-217.

Robertson, Geoffrey. 1999. Crimes Against Humanity. London: Penguin. Chapter 6, 'An End to Impunity? '. pp.203-242

Popper, Karl. 1962. The Open Society and Its Enemies. Vol. 1, The Spell of Plato. NY: Routledge. Chapter 6, 'Totalitarian Justice'. Pp. 86-119.

Minow, Martha. 1998. Between Vengeance and Forgiveness. Boston: Beacon Press. Chapter 3 'Trials' pp. 25-51.

Session Three: Political Violence During the Cold War: Civilians Under Fire

Robertson, Geoffrey. 1999. Crimes Against Humanity. London: Penguin. Chapter 2, 'The Post-war World'. pp.35-79

Wilson, Richard. 1995: Maya Resurgence in Guatemala. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press. Pp. 206-259.

Ellis, Stephen 1998. 'The Historical Significance of South Africa's Third Force'. Journal of Southern African Studies 24(2):261-299.

Ignatieff, Michael. 1999. The Warrior's Honour. London: Random House, Vintage. Chapter 3, 'The Narcissism of Minor Difference', Pp. 34-71.

Session Four: Is Amnesty International?

Popkin, Margaret. 1999. 'Latin American Amnesties in Comparative Perspective.' Ethics and International Affairs. 13:99-122.

Roht-Arriaza, Naomi and Lauren Gibson. 1998. 'The Developing Jurisprudence on Amnesty.' Human Rights Quarterly. 20(4):843-885.

Roht-Arriaza, Naomi. 1995. Impunity and Human Rights in International Law and Practice. New York: Oxford University Press. Chapter 3, Sources in International Treaties.' Pp. 24-38. Chapter 5, 'Special Problems of a Duty to Prosecute.', pp. 57-70

South African Constitutional Court Judgment on Amnesty 1996
http://www.concourt.gov.za/date1996.html

Session Five: Truth Commissions: General

Hayner, Priscilla B. 1994 'Fifteen Truth Commissions-1974 to 1994: A Comparative Study.' Human Rights Quarterly Volume 16:597-655.

*Hayner, Priscilla B. 2001. Unspeakable Truths: Confronting State Terror and Atrocity. London: Routledge. Chapters 1-3, pp. 1-31.

Minow, Martha. 1998. Between Vengeance and Forgiveness. Boston: Beacon Press.
Chapter 4 'Truth Commissions'. Pp. 52-90.

Robertson, Geoffrey. 1999. Crimes Against Humanity. London: Penguin. Chapter 7, 'Slouching Towards Nemesis'. pp.243-284

Session Six: Truth Commissions: Latin America

Ensalaco, Mark. 1994. 'Truth Commissions for Chile and El Salvador: A Report and Assessment', Human Rights Quarterly. 16:656-675.

Panizza, Francisco. 1995. 'Human Rights in the Processes of Transition and Consolidation of Democracy in Latin America.' Political Studies 1995, 43:168-188.

Barahona de Brito, Alexandra et al, eds, 2001. The Politics of Memory. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Chapter 4 'Truth, Justice, Memory and Democratization in the Southern Cone, pp. 119-160 and chapter 5 'War, Peace and Memory Politics in Central America', pp. 161-189.

Session Seven: Public Hearings of the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission

*Krog, Antjie. 1998. Country of My Skull. NY: Random House.

Bozzoli, Belinda. 1998. 'Public Ritual and Private Transition: the Truth Commission in Alexandra Township, South Africa 1996", African Studies. Vol. 57, No.2., pp. 167-195.

Session Eight: Reconciliation and Revenge in South Africa

*Wilson, Richard A. 2001. The Politics of Truth and Reconciliation in South Africa. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Session Nine: Justice in Post-socialist Eastern Europe

*Borneman, John. 1997. Settling Accounts: violence, justice and accountability in postsocialist Europe. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

Session Ten: The Pinochet Extradition Proceedings

Robertson, Geoffrey. 1999. Crimes Against Humanity. London: Penguin. Chapter 7, 'The Case of General Pinochet'. pp.368-400

Woodhouse Diana. Ed. 2000. The Pinochet Case: a legal and constitutional analysis.
Portland, Oregon: Hart Publishing. Chapter 1 'Introduction' pp. 1-14; Chapter 5 'Pinochet and
Issues of Morality and Justice' pp. 81-92; Chapter 6 'Sovereign Immunity Under International
Law.' 93-113.

Wilson, Richard J. 1999. 'Prosecuting Pinochet: international crimes in Spanish domestic law.'
Human Rights Quarterly. Vol. 21(4): 927-979.

Session Eleven: UN Tribunals: The Balkans and Rwanda

Forsythe, David. 2000. Human Rights in International Relations. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Chapter 4, 'International Criminal Courts'. Pp.84-109.

Robertson, Geoffrey. 1999. Crimes Against Humanity. London: Penguin. Chapter 8, ' The Balkan Trials'. pp.285-323.

Naomi Roht-Arriaza Chapter One, 'The Role of International Actors in National Accountability Processes', pp. 40-64. In Barahona de Brito, Alexandra et al, eds, 2001. The Politics of Memory. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Mamdani, Mahmood. 2001. When Victims Become Killers: colonialism, nativism and
genocide in Rwanda. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Chapter 7 'The Civil War and
the Genocide', pp. 185-233, and Conclusion 'Political Reform after Genocide' pp. 264-282

Also have a look at the various tribunal web sites eg., War Crimes Tribunal Watch http://www.igc.org/balkans/tribunal.html

Session Twelve: A Critique of Global Justice

Silbey, Susan. 1997. '"Let Them Eat Cake": Globalization, Postmodern Colonialism and the Possibilities of Justice.' Law and Society Review. 30(2):207-235.

Hardt, Michael and A. Negri. Empire. 2000. Harvard: Harvard University Press. Chapter 1 'World Order' pp.3-21.

A. Pollis 1996 'Cultural relativism revisited' Human Rights Quarterly 18:316-344

Peter Jones. 1994. Rights. London: Macmillan. Chapter 9, 'Some Doubts and Difficulties.' Pp. 190-220.

Session Thirteen: The International Criminal Court

Robertson, Geoffrey. 1999. Crimes Against Humanity. London: Penguin. Chapter 7, ' The International Criminal Court'. pp.324-367

Schabas, William. 2001. An Introduction to the International Criminal Court. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Chapters 1-2 'Creation of the Court.' And 'Crimes Prosecuted by the Court' pp. 1-53, and 'Appendix: Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court', pp. 167-247.

Sharf, Michael. 1999. 'The Amnesty Exception to the Jurisdiction of the International
Criminal Court.' Cornell International Law Journal. 32(3): 507-527.

Session Fourteen: Course summary
General Discussion and discussion of proposed student readings and essays. 5

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