Sitting on Powder Kegs: Socioeconomic Rights in Transitional Societies

Abstract

Considerable progress has been made in the field of transitional justice in recent years, signified by such landmarks as a permanent international criminal court. Unaddressed aspects of transition remain, however, which need serious attention if peace is to be sustainable in the long term. Oppressive political arrangements favor particular segments of society while simultaneously disenfranchising and economically and socially excluding the less powerful. To date, transitional justice initiatives have focused on the cessation of violence, establishing order and correcting civil and political injustices. Social and economic factors have taken second or no place at all. Yet, social and economic grievances can be 'powder kegs' that, if left unaddressed, threaten to blow up peace initiatives. Zimbabwe provides empirical evidence of the dangers of marginalizing economic and social imperatives in the transition from repression.

Development vs peace? The role of media in the Law of Victims and Land Restitution in Colombia

“…As noted earlier in this article, governmental focus on formalization of land ownership has not been coupled with security of land tenure (Huggins, 2009), or security for victims. Furthermore, the emphasis on redress for victims of illegal armed groups has overlooked the culpability of political and economic actors, and the widespread corruption and inequalities which are at the heart of the armed conflict in the country (Carranza, 2008; Duthie, 2008; Laplante, 2008; Mani, 2008; Miller, 2008; Muvingi, 2009; Pasipanodya, 2008).…”

“…This may be problematic as, according to this perspective, marginalization, structural inequality, corruption and economic crimes are interlinked and at the root of conflict and human rights abuses. Accordingly, any sustainable peace will require measures of redistributive justice, accountability for economic crimes and corruption linked to violence, and the inclusion of a development agenda in transitional justice efforts (Carranza, 2008; Duthie, 2008; Laplante, 2008; Mani, 2008; Miller, 2008; Muvingi, 2009; Pasipanodya, 2008).…”

Memory, counter-memory and resistance: notes on the ‘Greek Debt Truth Commission’

“…Consequently, issues of socioeconomic justice have often been excluded from post-conflict memory-making (Meister, 2011). Such exclusions tend to leave issues of social injustice unaddressed making them 'powder-kegs' that have the potential to erupt within post-conflict societies, dragging them back into periods of renewed violence (Muvingi, 2009). In this sense, the 'technocratic' strength of human rights discourses is tempered somewhat by the limited scope within which it has defined and memorialised the past.…”

‘Victims of’ human rights abuses in transitional justice: hierarchies, perpetrators and the struggle for peace

“…These victims of the peace are to be found at the foot of the hierarchy of victims (if found on it at all), and the continuing socio-economic and cultural harms they encounter during transition are at the foot of the hierarchy of harms. A multitude of unfavourable factors militate against them; in reflecting the messiness of conflict and transition they challenge the neat categorisation into rigidly defined binaries that transitional justice prefers, 155 the harms that they continue to experience require fundamental socio-economic and/or cultural change that transitional justice has always avoided in favour of securing political and civil rights, 156 and, where 'complex political victims' are concerned, it is difficult for transitional justice processes and discourses to 'see' past their role in creating, as opposed to being, victims. 157 This has created a paradoxical quagmire; transitional justice mechanisms and discourses either fail to 'see' such victims of the peace at all, or conversely they only 'see' them through a lens of normative stigma.…”