Dealing with Wars and Dictatorships [electronic resource] : Legal Concepts and Categories in Action /
Israël, Liora.editor.
Mouralis, Guillaume.editor.
The 20th century saw an unprecedented number of major wars, conflicts, and massive human rights violations. From each emerged the desire to make sense of the recent past (and present) by imagining new ways of dealing with such events. In order to prevent new forms of violence, or to punish the persons responsible of past horrors, various solutions have been imagined, deployed, implemented, and discussed, at different levels. This book is a reflection on the social and historical construction, appropriation, and circulation of categories, norms, and savoir-faire related to the ways social groups and institutions—state, judiciary, professional organizations—confront traumatic events. Even if there is a robust literature on purges and other mechanisms intended to deal with an authoritarian or violent past, written by authors belonging to numerous disciplines and exploring different periods and topics with a variety of theoretical and methodological backgrounds, our goal was to propose a more sociologically oriented model of analysis. Far from being only an intellectual frenzy, this orientation appears to be less normative than most “post-transitional” approaches and potentially more general than strictly monographic approaches. In doing so, our objective is not only to provide a critical approach, but also to sustain a more realistic view of this highly political and moral domain.
Description based upon print version of record.
Includes bibliographical references.
General Introduction -- “Épuration”: History of a Word -- Humanity Seized by International Criminal Justice -- Dealing with Collaboration in Belgium after the Second World War: From Activism to Collaboration and Incivism --  Transitional Justice as Universal Narrative -- The Invention of “Transitional Justice” in the 1990s -- “Transitional Justice” and National “Mastering of the Past”: Criminal Justice and Liberalization Processes in West Germany after 1945 -- Poor Little Belgium? Belgian Trials of German War Criminals, 1944-1951 -- From Revolution to Restoration. Transnational Implications of the Greek Purge of Wartime Collaborators -- The Defense in the Dock: Professional Purges of French Lawyers after the Second World War -- Law and the Soviet Purge: Domestic Renewal and International Convergences -- Circulation of Models of épuration after the Second World War: from France to Italy -- Reassessing the Boundaries of Transitional Justice: An Inquiry of Political Transitions, Armed Conflicts and Human Rights Violations -- The Emergence of Transitional Justice as a Professional International Practice -- The Uncertain Place of Purge within Transitional Justice, and the Limitations of International Law in the World’s Response to Mass Atrocity.
The 20th century saw an unprecedented number of major wars, conflicts, and massive human rights violations. From each emerged the desire to make sense of the recent past (and present) by imagining new ways of dealing with such events. In order to prevent new forms of violence, or to punish the persons responsible of past horrors, various solutions have been imagined, deployed, implemented, and discussed, at different levels. This book is a reflection on the social and historical construction, appropriation, and circulation of categories, norms, and savoir-faire related to the ways social groups and institutions—state, judiciary, professional organizations—confront traumatic events. Even if there is a robust literature on purges and other mechanisms intended to deal with an authoritarian or violent past, written by authors belonging to numerous disciplines and exploring different periods and topics with a variety of theoretical and methodological backgrounds, our goal was to propose a more sociologically oriented model of analysis. Far from being only an intellectual frenzy, this orientation appears to be less normative than most “post-transitional” approaches and potentially more general than strictly monographic approaches. In doing so, our objective is not only to provide a critical approach, but also to sustain a more realistic view of this highly political and moral domain.
International humanitarian law.
Human rights.
Political science.
Sociology.
History.
International Humanitarian Law, Law of Armed Conflict.
Human Rights.
Political Science.
Sociology, general.
History, general.