The justice cascade
Subtitle: how human rights prosecutions are changing world politics
By: Kathryn Sikkink
Edition: 1st ed.
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Co.
Published: 2011
Place of publication: New York
Language: eng
Number of pages: 342
ISBN-13: 9780393079937
Subjects: Administration of Criminal justice; Crimes against humanity; World politics; International criminal courts; International cooperation; Prosecution; Criminal liability (International law)
Description: Over the past three decades, hundreds of government officials have gone from being immune to any accountability for their human rights violations to being the subjects of highly publicized trials in Latin America, Europe, and Africa, resulting in enormous media attention and severe consequences. Here, renowned scholar Kathryn Sikkink brings to light the groundbreaking emergence of these human rights trials as a modern political tool, one that is changing the face of global politics as we know it. Drawing on personal experience and extensive research, Sikkink explores the building of this movement toward justice, from its roots in Nuremberg to the watershed trials in Greece and Argentina. She shows how the foundations for the stunning, public indictments of Slobodan Milošević and Augusto Pinochet were laid by the long, tireless activism of civilians, many of whose own families had been destroyed, and whose fight for justice sometimes came at the risk of their own lives and careers. She also illustrates what effect the justice cascade has had on democracy, conflict, and repression, and what it means for leaders and citizens everywhere, including the policymakers behind our own "war on terror."--From publisher description.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references and index.
Table of contents: title: Introduction; title: Part I. Creating individual accountability. Navigating without a map: human rights trials in southern Europe; Argentina: from pariah state to global protagonist; title: Part II. Spreading ideas about individual accountability. Interlude: how does the Argentine experience spread?; The streams of the justice cascade; title: Part III. Do human rights prosecutions make a difference? the effects of human rights prosecutions in Latin America; Global deterrence and human rights prosecutions; Is the United States immune to the justice cascade?; title: Part IV. Conclusions. Policy, theory, and the justice cascade.