The legal governance of historical memory and the rule of law
Journal: UvA-DARE (University of Amsterdam)
Year: 2020

The thesis demonstrates that state-based instrumentalizations of history through law and ostensibly legal measures have an impact on the rule of law. Ever since memory laws were adopted in Europe during the early 1990s to stem Holocaust denialism, their breadth has expanded considerably. Increasingly, they have been resorted to by governments to impose interpretations of historical events, that impact minorities, influence history education and even shape citizenship on the basis of historical v