The field of transitional justice is increasingly characterized by the dominance of legalism to the detriment of both scholarship and practice. The first part of the paper examines what is meant by legalism and its consequences in the field through a number of overlapping themes: ‘legalism as seduction’, the ‘triumph’ of human rights, and the tendency towards ‘seeing like a state’. The second part considers a number of correctives to such leanings which are analysed as encouraging legal humility, exploring the human rights as development axis, and finally developing a criminology of transitional justice. As law's place at the heart of transition from conflict is now secure, the time is right for a more honest appraisal of the limitations of legalism and a correspondingly greater willingness to countenance the role of other [non-legal] actors and forms of knowledge. ‘Letting go of legalism’ will both thicken the subject and deliver more effective change on the ground.

Beyond Legalism: Towards a Thicker Understanding of Transitional Justice

There is a general tendency for social psychologists to focus on processes of oppression rather than resistance This is exemplified and entrenched by the Stanford Prison Experiment (SPE) Consequently, researchers and commentators have come to see domination, tyranny, and abuse as natural or inevitable in the world at large Challenging this view, research suggests that where members of low-status groups are bound together by a sense of shared social identity, this can be the basis for effective leadership and organization that allows them to counteract stress, secure support, challenge authority, and promote social change in even the most extreme of situations This view is supported by a review of experimental research—notably the SPE and the BBC Prison Study—and case studies of rebellion against carceral regimes in Northern Ireland, South Africa, and Nazi Germany This evidence is used to develop a social identity model of resistance dynamics

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When Prisoners Take Over the Prison A Social Psychology of Resistance

International criminal law has witnessed a rapid rise after the end of the Cold War. The United Nations refers to the birth of a new 'age of accountability', but certain historical objections, such as selectivity or victor's justice, have never fully gone away, and many of the justice dimensions of international criminal law remain unexplored. Various critiques have emerged in socio-legal scholarship or globalization discourse, revealing that there is a stark discrepancy between reality and expectation. Linking discussion of legal theories, case-law and practice to scholarship and opinion, A Critical Introduction to International Criminal Law explores these critiques through five main themes at the heart of contemporary dilemmas:The shifting contours of criminality and international crimesThe tension between individual and collective responsibilityThe challenges of domestic, international, hybrid and regional justice institutionsThe foundations of justice proceduresApproaches towards punishment and reparationSuitable for students, academics and professionals from multiple fields wishing to understand contemporary theories, practices and critiques of international criminal law. This title is also available as Open Access on Cambridge Core.

A Critical Introduction to International Criminal Law

Political Justice: The Use of Legal Procedure for Political Ends.

Drawing upon criminological studies in the field of prisoner rehabilitation, this essay explores the relevance of the Demobilisation, Disarmament and Reintegration (DDR) framework to the process of conflict transformation in Northern Ireland. In a similar fashion to the critique of `passivity' offered by, for example, the `strengths based' or `good lives' approach to prisoner resettlement and reintegration more generally, the authors contend that the Northern Ireland peace process offers conspicuous examples of former prisoners and combatants as agents and indeed leaders in the process of conflict transformation. They draw out three broad styles of leadership which have emerged amongst ex-combatants over the course of the Northern Ireland transition from conflict— political, military and communal. They suggest that cumulatively such leadership speaks to the potential of ex-prisoners and ex-combatants as moral agents in conflict transformation around which peacemaking can be constructed rather than as obst...

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Re-imagining DDR Ex-combatants, leadership and moral agency in conflict transformation

This paper explores the range of strategies employed by states to obfuscate their responsibility in state crime through ‘othering’ both perpetrators and victims. It draws upon a range of frameworks of international humanitarian law, human rights, transitional justice as well as criminological theory to explore the historical and contemporary techniques of obfuscation. The first part of the article focuses upon the ways in which state agency is either exercised covertly or by proxy. Strategies include ‘resort to perfidy’, the expanded use of ‘specialist’ forces, collusion with indigenous paramilitaries and the use of private-sector mercenaries and military firms to outsource state deviance. The second part of the article then examines the ‘othering’ of the enemies of the state. These strategies include holding detainees outside national territories, using third-party nations to carry out torture or redefining the status of individuals to designate them as juridical ‘others’, with few national or international legal protections. The authors conclude that the notion of state crime should move beyond a monolithic conceptualization of the state and that a more subtle grasp of the different modalities of proxy agency and othering encourages us to look beyond retributive-centred international and national criminal law as but one of the mechanisms for attributing responsibility for state deviance.

http://jthomasniu.org/class/781/Assigs/jammcevoy.pdf

State Crime by Proxy and Juridical Othering

Political imprisonment and the 'War on Terror'

Conflict, Suffering and the Promise of Human Rights

This chapter examines the relationship between the politics of blame and victimhood in post-conflict Northern Ireland and the treatment of politically motivated former prisoners. Using the examples of direct and indirect discrimination in the areas of employment and access to mental health services, the chapter considers how the discursive operation of blaming produces evasions and attributions of guilt. It argues that such blaming practices have very real material consequences for the allocation or withholding of goods and burdens in the community. The chapter notes also that the ‘cause of victims’ is often appropriated by the press and other political actors for their own purposes, frequently to block the provision of public goods to one particular group of ex-combatants, namely former politically motivated prisoners. The chapter concludes by posing a series of questions about blaming, justice and the moral authority of the victim in the post-conflict moment.

Framing Blame and Victimhood in Post-conflict Northern Ireland

Le present article examine la relation entre la politique du blâme et le traitement des anciens prisonniers politiques dans l’Irlande du Nord post-conflit. S’appuyant sur des exemples de discrimination directe et indirecte tant dans les secteurs de l’emploi que dans l’acces aux services de sante mentale, l’article porte sur la facon dont l’operation discursive du blâme conduit a evacuer en meme temps qu’a etablir des culpabilites. Il soutient que l’octroi de tels blâmes a eu des consequences materielles tres concretes sur l’allocation des ressources, le refus de les allouer ou encore l’attribution des charges dans la communaute. L’article note aussi que la « cause des victimes » est souvent recuperee par la presse et d’autres acteurs politiques pour leurs propres interets, frequemment en vue de bloquer la distribution de ressources publiques a un groupe particulier d’anciens combattants : les anciens prisonniers politiques. Il conclut en posant une serie de questions au sujet du blâme, de la justice et de l’autorite morale de la victime dans un contexte de justice transitionnelle. L’article vise essentiellement a offrir quelques pistes de lecture pour comprendre la relation entre processus de blâme, stigmatisation et exclusion sociale.

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Ruth Jamieson

Papers

State Crime by Proxy and Juridical Othering

Political imprisonment and the 'War on Terror'

Conflict, Suffering and the Promise of Human Rights

Framing Blame and Victimhood in Post-conflict Northern Ireland

Punition, blâme et stigmate dans une Irlande du Nord post-conflit : l’expérience d’anciens prisonniers politiques