Forgiveness and Transitional Justice

• One was touched by the forgiveness the grandfather displayed towards the murderers of his family and felt sorry for the lives that they had to live.
• The grandfather realized the murderers were upset by past misfortune and felt it was up to God to handle them.
• Forgiveness can be freeing by not having to hold onto a grudge anymore; one never knows the weight of holding back.
• The grandfather had forgiven the murderers and, in some cases, appealed for their life sentences to be commuted.

Transitional Justice in the News

• Syria faces an immense challenge in achieving justice for Assad Regime crimes.
• The rebel alliance in Syria vowed to prosecute senior figures from the ousted government.
• Accountability in Syria will be difficult due to the country's vulnerability and division.
• A court ruling on Belgium's conduct in colonial Africa was hailed as a turning point.
• Women raped by Korean soldiers during the Vietnam War are still awaiting apologies.
• The Justice Department corrected the record on the "systematic" Tulsa Race Massacre.
• Mario Sandoval was charged with dictatorship-era crimes in Argentina.
• The House of Representatives finally recognized the Armenian genocide.

Constructing "the other"

• Three mechanisms by which human beings construct "the other":
• Us vs. them
• Moral disengagement
• Blaming the victim
• Three "momentum-inducing features" that propel human beings to engage in genocide and other mass atrocities:
• Professional socialization
• Group identification
• Binding factors within the group

The Nature of Hate

• Groups of people hate each other so much that they seek to eliminate "the other".
• Three explanations: "Us vs. them" thinking, moral disengagement, and blaming the victim.

"Us" vs. "Them"

• Universal adaptations include the role of ethnocentrism.
• Ethnocentrism involves a "we" group and a "they" group, where people think their culture is superior to others.
• One's own group is always the "right" one, leading to a superiority complex.
• Xenophobia is the fear of outsiders and strangers, with the belief that "we are what we are because they are not what we are".
• Group leaders can stir up these universal adaptations.

Moral Disengagement

• Involves expansion and constriction of our "moral circle" to determine who is "worthy" of our moral consideration.
• "Most great crimes in human history come in moralistic dress."
• Moral justification: Killing members of another group is necessary for the safety and security of one's own group.
• It is not a right but an obligation, a matter of self-defense.
• Groups that perceive themselves as victims may consider aggression defensive.
• Even after atrocities, perpetrators believe they did it for the "right" and moral reasons.
• Dehumanization of victims leads to the creation of social death.
• Categorizing a group as inhuman by using categories or subhuman creatures, dehumanization can be linguistic and physical
• Physical dehumanization includes prisoner isolation, mistreatment, starvation, and mass burials, all reinforced by propaganda
• "Euphemistic" labeling of brutality sanitizes evil through language, such as calling innocent civilians "collateral damage" or using terms like "Operation Clean and Beautiful Nation".

Blaming the Victims

• Victims have "earned" their suffering, stemming from a premise of a "just" world.
• There is a cognitive tendency for perpetrators to see the world as just, known as the "just world phenomenon".
• "Blame attribution" is very common in genocide and other mass atrocities.

Social Construction of Cruelty

• Social construction of cruelty is a societal/situational construct of evil.
• The "power of the situation" is key, emphasizing "not who we are but where we are".
• Professional organizations use socialization, group identification, and binding factors.
• Socialization within professional organizations, often military, paramilitary, and governments, involves escalating commitments:
• Starts out voluntary and expected compliance is on a small level ("foot in the door").
• Bruta easier to do with Greek government torturers as an example: small steps or indoctrination to become torturers.
• personal background would give insight into such sadism.
• Reinforces an atmosphere of cruelty to initiative, sustain, and cope with engaging in brutality.
• Ritual conduct affects both perpetrators and those brutalized. Roles and Persons:
• core part of identity with 3 steps compliance, identification, internalization
• Group identification involves emotional attachment to a group (race, ethnicity, tribe, kin, religion, nationality, ideology):
• Repression of conscience
• Diffusion of responsibility within larger groups leading to deindividuation.
• No longer an individual; only a member of a group.
• Rational self-interest, both professional and personal, as part of a group is also involved.
• "Cementing mechanisms" are group dynamics that keep people in "evil doing" hierarchies.
• Examples: Peer pressure and kinship cues. Gender: : overwhelmingly (but not exclusively!) men, with "masculinity norms.

Transitional Justice

• Significant developments in transitional justice: shift following WWII and after the Cold War.
• Types of anticipated changes: WWII, 1970s wave of democratization, Cold War, universal jurisdiction, historical transitional justice.
• Major factors shape domestic transnational justice decisions by choosing between peace or stability and justice.
• The justice cascade describes the shift towards accountability for human rights violations, increasing international and regional action.
• Transitional Justice (TJ) addresses systematic and widespread violations of human rights that normal justice systems cannot handle.
• Mass atrocities have occurred since the beginning of organized human communities.
• Historical forms of TJ: immediate retribution, broad amnesty, and little focus on "justice".
• The idea of addressing atrocities emerged in the mid-20th century.
• TJ consists of multiple "Generations".
• 1st Generation is post-World War II and the Nuremberg Trials
• 2nd Generation = 1970 era and Third Wave of Democratization
• 3rd Generation- End of Cold War
• 4th Generation is ICC criminal court
• 5th Generation Justice Cascade

TJ 1st Generation

• Transitional Justice began after WWII due to the emerging international human rights movement, the link between peace and justice, the Holocaust, high civilian death count, mass war atrocities, waning colonialism, and the US as an emerging superpower.
• The first generation: Nuremberg and Tokyo War Crimes Tribunals (1945-49) previously called IMTs.
• State perpetrators were held individually criminally responsible for mass human rights violations using "punitive justice”.
• Individual emphasis was a reaction to failed collective guilt sanctions against Germany after WWI.
• For Nuremberg (1945-49), there were 26 top military leaders, 56 high-ranking SS officers, 23 doctors, 14 officials, and charges of war crimes, crimes against peace, and conspiracy.
• The IMT for Germany was only for high-level individuals.
• Subsequent trials of over 1,500 Nazi war criminals aimed at the entire chain of command, with sentences of 20 years or less.
• The German army was ultimately reconstituted.
• Tribunals were a hotly debated response due to criticisms of "Victor's Justice" and overlooking traditional judicial processes.
• IMT creation was favored rather than using available domestic legal systems as Rosevelt suggested.
• International Crimes consisted of murder, extermination, enslavement, deportation, and inhumane acts against any civilian population, before or during the war, on political, racial, or religious, Not officially against international law until 1998.
• This forced removal of the entire Nazi chain of command lead to Rejection of "just following orders” as a defense.
• Historical Justice illustrates of the rule of law to address injustices and Allowed for documentation of what happened during war: establishes an official record
• Divided german citizens.
• Introduced the concept of international criminal responsibility: Individuals can be held accountable for mass atrocities.
• 2nd Gen "Third wave of democratization" in 1970s and 1980s with citizens often neighbors threw a dictatorial regime.
• 1st Wave: 1828-1926 with expanded suffrage in Western Europe and US
• 2nd wayve 1943-1962 : Many countries transitioned to democratic governance
• 3rd Democratization Wave (don't confuse with TJ generations): Starting with Portugal in 1973-74 and Spain in 1977 , then South America , Asia and FINALLY Eastern Europe after 1989.
• Dictatorships turned to democracy rather than war and genocide .
• Human rights activists/victim groups: demands for justice for the crimes of the previous regime.
• These demands: transition from authoritarianism to democracy and “transitional justice”
• New emerging concepts: “Truth Commissions” or “Truth and Reconciliation Commissions”
• "Truth vs. peace” and “truth vs. justice” debates
• 3rd gen: the aftermath of civil (or intrastate) wars in the 1990s-TJ inclusion transitioned to civil wars (with attendant atrocities) to peace "Ad-hoc" international tribunals emerge again in the 1990s for the first time since WWII and Now TJ encompasses both domestic political transitions as well as post-conflict environments

Ambitious

• Combining post-dictatorships and genocides/civil wars together is controversial
• Transitions from civil wars/genocide complicated.
• Post war societies- psychologically traumatized, socio-economically devastated
• 4th Generations, is creation of the International Criminal Court (ICC) : with Founded under the Rome Statute in 1998 to prosecuted : genocide, war crimes, Crimes against humanity and crimes of aggression

Fifth Gen

• Justice cascade
• Expansion of universal jurisdiction by national courts in Belgium or Spain

TJ Measures

• Four broad categories of measures
• Acknowledgment: includes restorative measures criminal justice amnesties criminal justice measures
• Criminal justice measures are the most common. Effects : their positive effect only happened 20 or more years after a transition process has started
• 6th Gen: Historical Transitional Justice is a newer area of acknowledging injustices
• Remedy: wrongs that are left deep to rectify, and Legacy: Historical injustices shape current social, economic, and political dynamics; addresses enduring inequalities/institutional legacies that continue to affect marginalized groups
• It acknowledges suffering/narratives with Prevention, Empowerment
• There are differences/similarities between punitive and restorative justice based on TJ mechanisms under each mechanism
• Difficult: victims; evidence decays over time and procedural barriers

The 5 ways they are Difficult:

• Political and institutional Resistance- Governmnent
• Governmnent: Accountibility.
• Inergenerational: Ethical questions
• Social and cultural sensitivities
• "Transition" after a change in power within a country or end of war (or both). Society has still not fully moved
• Some concepts include transitionalism, rule, Historical accounting, and Redefinition.
• "Justice" varies across time and geography.
• Justice centers around fairness and retribution/ restoration.
• Punishments are given for actions of wrongdoings.
• There is focus on the victim and relationships.
• Concepts included is distribution, accountability, impunity, reconsiliation, empathy, rehumanization with remembrance and or forgiveness of pasts.
• Economic, Johan Galtung and the two senses are the Actual cost of a TJ process/achieving socio economic justice for impacted society and needs that will take a generation/20 years .

Success Means

• Confront without revenge
• Determine who to be responsible
• Restore Public trust
• Harm those divided from comunities

TJ Measurements

• Acknowledge of experience.
• Repair of restoration.
• Criminal Justice to make persecuters acctounable.
• Amnesties

Asia Justice

• Review to understand relation commissions with commissioner selection , financial idenpendence , the mandate , gender issues , victim centered and report dissemination and legacy ,

TJ Measure Categories

• Incorpate different Approches

Punnitive :

• Establishing accountability , A sign guilt to who is specifics; domestic justice happenes;
• restorative Justice ; the Punitive led past/Anger or Mistrust. The restoration of social relationships and peace is More established.

Transitional Justice

• Important when persecutors still have powerr with stories and can lead processes for the truth

Common Characteristics

• Are bodies that are temorary and are mostly affected in political transitions and human rights .

Types Of Truth

Conclusion in a report to the public or commissions inquiries with broad power .

Risks

• Expectations/accussations
• RE traumatic for weak and corrupt governments

South African Justice Types:

• Amenties
• Areas laws
• Seperate Homelands for the majority and some will be lost to the african homeland