RESPONSES TO ATROCITY WORKSHOP
University of Wisconsin-Madison
April 20-21, 2007
Co-sponsored by the Global Legal Studies, Humanitarianism and World Order, and the Legacies of Violence Research Circle at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, and the Political Science Department at the University of Minnesota.
Schedule
Friday, April 20, 2007: International and Domestic Legal Mechanisms
(Room 3250 Law)
9:00-9:10 am Introduction
Scott Straus, University of Wisconsin – Madison
9:10-10:30 Panel 1, Leigh Payne, Chair
“How International Tribunals Influence Each Other and How They Interact with Domestic Efforts: An Overview”
Thierry Cruvellier, International Justice Tribune
“The Complementarity in Global and Domestic Trends in Transitional Justice”
Kathryn Sikkink, University of Minnesota
10:45-Noon Panel 2, Crawford Young, Chair
“Balance of Power and Justice in the Balance: International War Crimes Tribunals and the Politics of State Cooperation”
Victor Peskin, Arizona State University
“The Delicate Dance: Law and Politics of Justice in Central Africa”
Peter Rosenblum, Columbia University
Noon – 1:30 Lunch Break
(Room 7200 Law)
1:30-2:45 pm Panel 3: Francine Hirsh, Chair
“The Hope(lessness) of Courts in Historical Reconstruction”
Judge Dennis Davis, New York University and South Africa’s High Court
“Double Standards: Nazis and Terrorists on Trial in 1975 West Germany”
Rebecca Wittmann, University of Toronto
3:00-4:15 pm Panel 4: Sharon Hutchinson, Chair
“The Uses and Abuses of Local Justice”
Lars Waldorf, University of London
“The LRA and the ICC: Peace, Reconciliation, and Justice in Northern Uganda”
Ronald Atkinson, University of South Carolina
4:30-5:00 pm Wrap-Up
Heinz Klug, Leigh Payne, and Scott Straus
University of Wisconsin-Madison
6:30-7:00 Reception
7:00 Dinner
Saturday, April 21: Transitional Justice Theory Building: Quantitative and Qualitative Approaches
(All sessions in Lubar Commons, Room 7200 Law School)
8:30 - 9:00 AM Continental Breakfast
9:00 - 9:15 AM Opening and Workshop Plan
Leigh Payne, University of Wisconsin-Madison
Kathryn Sikkink, University of Minnesota
9:15 - 10:45 AM Session I: Trials and Prosecutions
Moderator: Scott Straus, University of Wisconsin-Madison
Ellen Lutz, Cultural Survival
David Mendeloff, Carleton University
Joachim Savelsberg, University of Minnesota
Commentator: Kathryn Sikkink, University of Minnesota
11:00- 12:30 PM Session II: Truth Commissions
Moderator: Lars Waldorf, University of London
Eric Brahm, University of Nevada, Las Vegas
Hunjoon Kim, University of Minnesota
Geoff Dancy, University of North Texas
Commentator: Leigh Payne, University of Wisconsin-Madison
12:30 – 1:30 PM Lunch
1:30 – 2:00 PM Breakout Sessions
2:00 – 3:30 PM Session III: Amnesty
Moderator: Ronald Atkinson, University of South Carolina
Louise Mallinder, Queen's University
Glenda Mezarobba, University of São Paulo
Leslie Vinjamuri, Georgetown University
Commentator: Andrew Reiter, University of Wisconsin-Madison
3:30 – 4:00 PM Breakout Sessions
4:00 – 5:30 PM Session IV: Lustration, Reparation, and Other
Moderator: Victor Peskin, Arizona State University
Monika Nalepa, Rice University
Veronica Michel, University of Minnesota
Tricia Olsen, University of Wisconsin-Madison
Commentator: Sara Dahill-Brown, University of Wisconsin-Madison
5:30 – 6:00 PM Breakout Sessions
6:00 – 6:30 PM Wrap-up
Moderator: Courtney Hillebrecht, University of Wisconsin-Madison
Leigh Payne, University of Wisconsin-Madison
Kathryn Sikkink, University of Minnesota
7:00 PM Dinner
Biographies of Workshop Participants
Ronald Atkinson
Professor of History, University of South Carolina
Atkinson is Professor of History at the University of South Carolina where he is director of the African Studies Program. He is the author of several books and numerous articles on Uganda. Most recently, he co-authored Traditional Ways of Coping in Acholi: Cultural Provisions for Reconciliation and Healing from War. Ron has been actively involved in the peace process in Northern Uganda, including holding a number of meetings with members of the LRA delegation, both in Juba and London. He also recently returned from a meeting with the ICC’s Chief Prosecutor.
Eric Brahm
Assistant Professor of Political Science, University of Nevada, Las Vegas
His research examines the politics of transitional justice and the effects of uncovering the past, as well as how these mechanisms contribute to post-conflict reconstruction. He teaches human rights and violence/terror at UNLV. In terms of research, Brahm remains interested in questions of evaluating the contribution of transitional justice mechanisms to post-conflict societies. He is also interested in nascent transitional justice efforts in Liberia and Aceh, particularly the role of transnational activists. He is more generally interested in the strata of international expertise promoting transitional justice and better understanding how they operate, assumptions, etc. Brahm is author of “Truth and Consequences: The Impact of Truth Commissions in Transitional Societies” (PhD dissertation, Department of Political Science, University of Colorado at Boulder, 2006) and “Uncovering the Truth: Examining Truth Commission Success and Impact,” International Studies Perspectives 8:1 (February 2007): 16-35.
Geoff Dancy
Adjunct Instructor of International Relations, University of North Texas
He will begin pursuing his Ph.D. in the fall of 2007 at the University of Minnesota. His research is broadly interested in the merging of normative and rationalist studies of decision-making using cross-national data. Specifically, Dancy has an interest in questions surrounding international law, transitional justice, and human rights. His Master's thesis, "Do As They Say and As They Do: An Integrated Approach to the Study of Norm Influence on Truth Commission Initiation, 1976-2003" (MA Thesis, Department of Political Science, University of North Texas, 2006), examines not whether truth commissions are an "effective" institution, but why they are established by state leaders in the first place. Dancy is also the co-author of "Judicial Decision Making and International Tribunals: Assessing the Impact of Individual, National and International Factors" Social Sciences Quarterly 86:3 (Sept 2005): 683-703 and "What Comes Before Truth? An Analysis of the Political Determinants of Truth Commission Onset" presented at the 47th International Studies Association Annual Convention.
Courtney Hillebrecht
PhD Candidate in Political Science, University of Wisconsin-Madison
Her substantive research interests include compliance with international human rights law, the role of the state as protector and violator of human rights, and the nexus of international and domestic politics. Hillebrecht is also interested in research design and statistical methodology, particularly time-series and event history analyses.
Hunjoon Kim
Ph.D. Candidate in Political Science, University of Minnesota
His dissertation examines the causes and impact of global diffusion of transitional justice measures. His publications include “Peacebuilding: What is in a Name?” Global Governance 13 (2007): 35-58 (coauthored with Michael Barnett et al.). His recent presentations include: “Why and When Do Countries Seek to Address Past Human Rights Violations after Transition? An Event History Analysis of 100 Countries covering 1980~2004” and “A Path toward the Establishment of a Truth Commission on Jeju April 3rd Incident in Korea” at the 48th International Studies Association Annual Convention.
Ellen Lutz
Executive Director of Cultural Survival
She is the Executive Director of Cultural Survival, a non-profit human rights organization that focuses on the rights of indigenous peoples. She received her J.D. from University of California-Berkeley and her M.A. in Anthropology from Bryn Mawr College. Prior to joining Cultural Survival in 2004, she was the Executive Director of the Center for Human Rights and Conflict Resolution at Tufts University’s Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, where she taught courses in international human rights, international criminal law, and international organizations. She is the co-editor of two forthcoming books: Trying Heads of State (with Caitlin Reiger), which examines the impact of the international justice movement on national government willingness to try perpetrators of human rights and financial crimes; and Human Rights and Conflict Resolution in Context (with Eileen Babbitt) which explores the overlap between human rights and conflict resolution initiatives in Colombia, Sierra Leone, and Northern Ireland. Along with Kathryn Sikkink, she authored a series of articles exploring the “justice cascade” in Latin America.
Louise Mallinder
Research Assistant, School of Law, Queen's University Belfast
She has recently completed her doctorate at Queen’s University Belfast (December 2006) and is currently working as a research assistant. To facilitate her doctoral research, Louise created an extensive database that compiled information on 421 amnesty laws from 127 countries and their related jurisprudence. This will be made available online in the future. Louise is currently preparing her first monograph, entitled To Forgive but not Forget? Amnesties, Transition and the Price of Peace (Hart Publishing 2008). In addition, Louise has published book reviews on texts on international criminal justice and constitutional law, and has presented her research at international conferences. She is currently working on a number of articles for publication and has been commissioned by the German Development Agency to write a report on state practice relating to amnesties for an international conference in June 2007. Finally Louise has taught a number of subjects at both undergraduate and postgraduate level including public international law, international criminal justice, conflict regulation, conflict resolution, constitutional law and research methods.
David Mendeloff
Assistant Professor, Norman Paterson School of International Affairs, Carleton University (Ottawa, Canada)
He currently teaches courses in conflict analysis, post-conflict peacebuilding, and U.S. foreign security policy. He also serves as Director of the Centre for Security and Defence Studies (CSDS), a leading Canadian research centre on international and Canadian security and defence issues housed at NPSIA. He is also faculty associate of Carleton’s Institute of European and Russian Studies. Mendeloff's research is on the causes and prevention of war; nationalist, ethnic and identity conflict; historical memory and interstate conflict; post-conflict peacebuilding and transitional justice; and national misperceptions and ideational sources of foreign policy. He holds a Ph.D. in political science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and B.A. (Hons.) in international relations from Pitzer College, Claremont.
Glenda Mezarobba
Ph.D. Candidate in Political Science, University of São Paulo
A journalist since 1988, Glenda Mezarobba is a PhD candidate at the USP - University of São Paulo, in Brazil (expected 2007). She is member of Brazilian Association of Political Science, the Nucleus of Support to Research about Democratization and Development at USP, and the Group of Research about Politics and Law at University of Campinas. She was granted a scholarship from Fapesp and currently a visiting fellow at the International Center for Transitional Justice (ICTJ) in New York. She is the author of Um Acerto de Contas com o Futuro: a Anistia e suas Conseqüências - um Estudo do Caso Brasileiro, published by editora Humanitas, São Paulo, 2006.
Veronica Michel
Ph.D. Student in Political Science, University of Minnesota
Born in Mexico City, Mexico, Veronica Michel got her B.A. in International Relations at the UNAM (Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México). She is currently a MacArthur Scholar in her first year of the PhD in Political Science at the University of Minnesota. She is interested in understanding the conditions in which human rights are more likely to be protected and enforced, and the processes and dynamics that enable these conditions to emerge. She is currently working on a paper that seeks to explore the factors that may account for the recent wave of judicial reforms in Latin America.
Monika Nalepa
Assistant Professor of Political Science, Rice University
She applies formal methods to the study of legislative institutions and institutional design in democratizing countries. She has received support from the National Science Foundation and the United States Institute of Peace to conduct field research on legal values and attitudes to the past communist era in Poland, Hungary, and the Czech Republic. She will be spending the 2006-07 academic year on a fellowship at the Harvard Academy of Scholars, where she will work on a book manuscript, “Skeletons in the Closet: Transitional Justice in the Post-Communist World.” Most recently, Dr. Nalepa has published two articles in the Journal of Conflict Resolution. She also served as guest co-editor of a special volume of the JCR devoted to Transitional Justice.
Tricia Olsen
Ph.D. Student in Political Science, University of Wisconsin-Madison
She graduated from Carleton College with a B.A. in Latin American Studies and a minor in Political Science, where she refined her Spanish and Portuguese language skills. She earned her M.A. in Political Science from UW-Madison in 2006. Now in the Ph.D. program in Political Science at the UW-Madison, Olsen’s primary role in the Transitional Justice Data Base Project is to undertake the data compilation and statistical analyses. Trained as a comparativist and methodologist, her substantive research interests include the fusion of political economy and social movement literature, especially movements surrounding human rights. Her current work focuses on whether the economic health of a country influences its decisions to employ specific transitional justice mechanisms.
Leigh Payne
Professor of Political Science, University of Wisconsin-Madison
Her main teaching and research interests are in Latin American politics. She is particularly interested in the study of democratization, and the challenges posed to democracy from groups currently or previously associated with political violence. Her research directly concerns the role that the legacy of authoritarian rule plays in institutional and extra-institutional processes in new democracies. For that research she has received support from Fulbright, Social Science Research Council, and the MacArthur Foundation among other granting institutions. Among many publications, she is co-editor of The Art of Truth-Telling about Authoritarian Rule (2005, University of Wisconsin Press) and the author of Uncivil Movements: The Armed Right-Wing and Democracy in Latin America (2000, Johns Hopkins University Press) as well as numerous articles and chapters devoted to truth telling, the confessions of torturers and collaborators, and memory politics in new democracies. Her most recent book, Unsettling Accounts: Neither Truth Nor Reconciliation in Confessions of State Violence (2007, Duke University Press) examines how democratic institutions and societies deal with past authoritarian state violence. Unlike many transitional justice scholars, her research poses a more skeptical view of the relationship of these processes to “settling accounts with the past,” hence the title of her book Unsettling Accounts.
Victor Peskin
Assistant Professor, School of Global Studies, Arizona State University
His scholarly and teaching interests lie at the intersection of international relations, comparative politics, public law, and human rights. His research examines the politics of the contemporary international criminal tribunals and their contentious relationship with states implicated in war crimes and genocide. He has published articles in Europe-Asia Studies, Legal Affairs, International Peacekeeping, the Journal of Human Rights, and the Journal of International Criminal Justice. Peskin is also the author of the forthcoming book, International Justice in Rwanda and the Balkans: Virtual Trials and State Cooperation (Cambridge University Press).
Andrew Reiter
Ph.D. Candidate in Political Science, University of Wisconsin-Madison
He focuses broadly on comparative politics and international relations, with a regional focus on Latin American and specific substantive interests in the topics of transitional justice, democratization, violence, and civil war. In particular he is interested in the challenges societies face as they make the difficult transition from periods of war and violence to periods of peace. His dissertation, The Politics of Spoilers after Civil War, aims to analyze cross-nationally the rise of spoilers in the aftermath of peace agreements following internal armed conflict. The findings of this dissertation project have the potential to illuminate the causes behind spoiler activity, aid in prediction of where and when spoilers will arise, and prescript more effective policy to manage them. He has been named a World Politics and Statecraft Fellow by the Smith Richardson Foundation to support his research.
Joachim J. Savelsberg
Professor of Sociology, University of Minnesota
He teaches courses in the sociology of law, punishment, and criminal behavior (including elite crime), sociological theory, and the sociology of knowledge. His recent work has explored the reciprocal relationship between collective memory and institutional responses to atrocities, including legal responses. His paper “Law and Collective Memory,” forthcoming in the Annual Review for Law and Social Sciences (Vol. 3, 2007), focuses on atrocity accounts. Another of his recent articles in the American Journal of Sociology (Vol. 111, 2005: 579-616) addresses ways in which collective memories of evil become institutionalized as law and law enforcement, for the case of hate crime law, comparatively for Germany and the United States (both pieces are co-authored with Ryan D. King, a former advisee, now Assistant Professor at SUNY Albany). His current projects deal with effects of the ICTY on New York Times accounts of atrocities committed during the Yugoslav wars; and the effects of collective memories of the My Lai massacre in Vietnam on current responses to war crimes committed by the U.S. military in Iraq.
Kathryn Sikkink
Regents Professor, Arleen Carlson Professor of Political Science and McKnight Distinguished University Professor, University of Minnesota.
She has a M.A. and Ph.D. in political science from Columbia University. Her publications include Mixed Signals: U.S. Human Rights Policy and Latin America; Activists Beyond Borders: Advocacy Networks in International Politics (co-authored with Margaret Keck); The Power of Human Rights: International Norms and Domestic Change (co-edited with Thomas Risse and Stephen Ropp); Restructuring World Politics: Transnational Social Movements, Networks and Norms (co-edited with Sanjeev Khagram and James Riker); and Ideas and Institutions: Developmentalism in Brazil and Argentina. She is a fellow of the Council on Foreign Relations and the American Association for Arts and Sciences, a member of the editorial board of the American Political Science Review, International Studies Quarterly, and International Organization.
Scott Straus
Assistant Professor of Political Science, University of Wisconsin-Madison
He is the author of two books on Rwanda: The Order of Genocide: Race, Power, and War in Rwanda (Cornell University Press, 2006), and, with Robert Lyons, Intimate Enemy: Images and Voices of the Rwandan Genocide (MIT/Zone Books, 2006). In February, The Order of Genocide was given the 2006 Award for Excellence in Political Science and Government from the Association of American Publishers. Straus also co-authored, with David Leonard, Africa’s Stalled Development: International Causes and Cures (Lynne Rienner, 2003), and he translated Jean-Pierre Chrétien’s The Great Lakes of Africa: Two Thousand Years of History (MIT/Zone, 2003). Straus has additionally published articles in Foreign Affairs, Genocide Studies and Prevention, the Journal of Genocide Research, and the Wisconsin International Law Journal.
Leslie Vinjamuri
Assistant Professor, Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service
She currently teaches courses on International Organization, and International Politics and is a member of the Mortara Center for International Studies. This academic year, Dr. Vinjamuri is a visiting fellow both at the Centre for the Study of Human Rights, and the Centre for International Studies at the London School of Economics where she is pursuing research on the effects of justice and accountability on peace negotiations and postwar environments, and the role of nonstate secular and religious actors in transitional justice. She is also completing a book manuscript, Justice, War, and Accountability since 1945. Her research is supported by a grant from the Smith Richardson Foundation. She has also held grants from the Institute of War and Peace Studies at Columbia University, the Center for Democracy and Civil Society at Georgetown University, the Eisenhower Institute, and the Institute for the Study of World Politics. Dr. Vinjamuri has published on issues of accountability and justice in International Security, Survival, and other leading journals of international relations. Prior to joining Georgetown, she was a fellow at Harvard University's John M. Olin Institute for Strategic Studies. Dr. Vinjamuri is a consultant to NGOs based in Europe and the United States on issues of transitional justice and U.S. foreign policy. Previously, she worked at the Congressional Research Service, and the United States Agency for International Development. Dr. Vinjamuri received her Ph.D. from Columbia University in New York City.
Lars Waldorf
Lecturer in International Human Rights Law, Institute of Commonwealth Studies, University of London
He is writing a book on Rwanda’s community genocide trials (gacaca) with support from a United States Institute of Peace grant. He was a Fellow at Harvard Law School’s Human Rights Program from 2004 to 2005 after running Human Rights Watch’s field office in Rwanda for two years and covering genocide trials at the United Nations International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda for a year.