The concept of transitional justice has been associated with the periods of political change when a country emerges from a war or turmoil and attempts to address the wrongdoings of the past. Among various instruments of transitional justice, truth commissions stand out as an example of a non-judicial form of addressing the crimes of the past. While their setup and operation can be criticized on different grounds, including excessive politization of hearings and the virtual impossibility of meaningfully assessing their impact, it has been widely acknowledged in the literature that the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in South Africa can be regarded as a success story due to its relatively strong mandate and widespread coverage and resonance it had in South African society. We would like to compare this commission from the 1990s with a more recent example, the Brazilian National Truth Commission, so as to be able to address the question of incorporation of gendered aspects in transitional justice (including examination of sexual violence cases, representation of women in truth-telling bodies, etc.), since gender often remains an overlooked and silenced aspect in such initiatives. Gendered narratives of transitional justice often do not fit into the wider narratives of post-war reconciliation. A more general question addressed in this research is whether the lack of formal procedure in truth commissions facilitates or hinders examination of sexual crimes in transitional settings.
In this brief, the authors examine Russian media discourses on domestic violence during the COVID-19 global pandemic. With the introduction of restrictive measures against the virus, such as physical distancing measures, cordoning off cities, a 2-week travel quarantine, and others, media reports started to emphasize growing numbers of domestic violence cases and the insufficiency of measures to help the victims. Russian media frequently linked the incidents of violence under lockdown to the absence of adequate legislative measures. Importantly, Russian media reports referenced a proposed draft law on domestic violence that had been actively debated throughout the second half of 2019 but was not adopted. Traditionalist groups, who believed the special law was not necessary, countered media reports insisting that family remained the safest place for people under the pandemic. Drawing on a constructivist paradigm and using critical discourse analysis and content analysis, this article examines media representations of domestic violence during the COVID-19 health pandemic, as well as media narratives over the perception of the state faced with the two insurmountable tasks: to contain the epidemic and protect the most vulnerable members of the society. We argue that despite the increasing influence of traditionalist ideas in Russian foreign and domestic policy-making, the COVID-19 pandemic can provide human rights activists and social workers with a renewed opportunity to frame the necessity of a special domestic violence law as means to protect the interests of the most vulnerable members of the society during crisis situations.
If the Tribunal is to be successful and is to contribute to the maintenance of international peace and security, both generally and in the former Yugoslavia, more States-individually and through international organizations-must provide assistance, both that which is obligatory, and perhaps more critically, that which is necessary. For it is only through a genuine will • to ensure that the rule of law will prevail-on the part of the international community that the Tribunal can achieve its mandate. Without this support, the Tribunal's achievements, however meaningful, will not realize their potential: to found a more just international order in which right is accorded primacy over might.
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