Grassroots Activism and the Evolution of Transitional Justice

Abstract

The families of the disappeared have long struggled to uncover the truth about their missing relatives. In so doing, their mobilization has shaped central transitional justice norms and institutions, as this ground-breaking work demonstrates. Kovras combines a new global database with the systematic analysis of four challenging case studies - Lebanon, Cyprus, South Africa and Chile - each representative of a different approach to transitional justice. These studies reveal how variations in transitional justice policies addressing the disappeared occur: explaining why victims' groups in some countries are caught in silence, while others bring perpetrators to account. Conceiving of transitional justice as a dynamic process, Kovras traces the different phases of truth recovery in post-transitional societies, giving substance not only to the 'why' but also the 'when' and 'how' of this kind of campaign against impunity. This book is essential reading for all those interested in the development of transitional justice and human rights.

The perils of accountability after crisis: ambiguity, policy legacies, and value trade-offs

“…Still, in transitional settings, victims often have different priorities and conflicting sets of rights (Kovras 2017;Hall et al 2017). Moreover, the legacy of past policies can shape victims' preferences.…”

“…Yet revealing potentially incriminatory evidence deters eyewitnesses from collaborating. To overcome this obstacle, the CMP offered immunity from prosecution and ensures anonymity and confidentiality (Kovras 2017). A number of countries around the world, including Northern Ireland and Colombia, have used a similar formula to deal with victims of clandestine political violence (Dempster 2016).…”

“Right to Truth” and Memory Laws: General Rules and Practical Implications

“…24.2), which extends the "right to truth" not only to relatives but to all persons who suffered as a result of the enforced disappearance, and in addition expands the definition of the right to include not only information about the fate of the victim, but also including the right to know the circumstances surrounding the disappearance as well as the progress and/or results of any and all official investigations. 2 The development of the "right to truth" has been influenced and shaped by the actions of families of disappeared persons (Garibian, 2014;Kovras, 2017). While it has gradually expanded to other human rights violations, so far the only universal treaty containing a "right to truth" is the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance.…”

Public sociology, social justice and struggles in the era of austerity-and-crises

“…An instance of this is the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance. This is by and large the result of tireless grassroots activism by relatives and families of victims of forced disappearances who literally ‘invented new legal tools’ and have forced the judges to recognise rights (Kovras, 2014), thus forcing the evolution of ‘transitional justice’ (Teitel, 2014).…”