Oxford Transitional Justice Research Seminars: Recent Episodes
Oxford University
Oxford Transitional Justice Research (OTJR) is an inter-disciplinary network of more than 100 Oxford staff and students working broadly on issues of transition in societies recovering from mass conflict and/or repressive rule. OTJR is dedicated to producing high-quality scholarship that connects intimately to practical and policy questions in transitional justice, focusing on the following themes: Prosecutions, Truth Commissions, Local and traditional practices, Compensation and reparations, Theoretical and philosophical debates in transitional justice, Institutional reform and Archives of tribunal and other transitional justice materials. The OTJR seminar programme is held weekly and reflects these aims.
Kumaravadivel Guruparan gives a talk as part of the Oxford Transitional Justice Research (OTJR) Seminar Series. In 2015, Sri Lankan witnessed regime change that removed President Mahinda Rajapaksa from power. Mahinda Rajapaksa was the President who led the war against the LTTE to its finish in 2009, a war in which thousands of Tamil civilians were killed. The regime change in 2015 was characterised by many of its supporters as a change that would deliver transitional justice. The new regime also employed the language of transitional justice, particularly in the UN Human Rights Council, in its attempt to divert calls for international accountability and justice for crimes committed during the war. The regime was short lived and fell in 2019 returning another Rajapaksa, Gotabaya Rajapakasa the war-time Defence Secretary as President. This talk will seek to explore the politics of identifying the regime change in 2015 as a transitional moment in Sri Lanka. As a general proposition, it will problematise using 'regime change' as an indicator for transition in deeply divided societies. It will argue that a Transitional Justice narrative that is aligned to the liberal peace tradition is bound to fail given that it fails to engage with the structural issues that inhibit democratic change. It will further argue that misplaced optimism generated by such thinly conceived transitional justice efforts may in fact hurt victims and survivors. Dr Kumaravadivel Guruparan served as an academic attached to the Department of Law, University of Jaffna, Sri Lanka between 2010 and 2020 serving as Senior Lecturer at the time of resignation. He served as Head of the Department between January 2017 and November 2019. He is also a practicing attorney and has appeared as lead counsel in a number of cases relating to post-war human rights issues in Northern Sri Lanka including in cases relating to the right to memory, the rights of families of the disappeared and post-war land issues. He is a Co-founder of the Tamil Civil Society Forum and Founder Chair of the Adayaalam Centre for Policy Research, based in Jaffna, Sri Lanka. He holds an LL.B (Hons) from the University of Colombo, Sri Lanka, a BCL from Balliol College, University of Oxford and a PhD from University College London in Public International Law and Comparative Constitutional Law. He was awarded the Chevening Scholarship in 2010 and the Commonwealth Scholarship in 2013. Guruparan was at the Bonavero Institute of Human Rights as a Research Visitor between October 2020 and January 2021.
Habeel Iqbal gives a talk as part of the Oxford Transitional Justice Research (OTJR) Seminar Series. Kashmir is among the oldest unresolved international conflicts on the United Nations' agenda. Over the last few decades, India has imposed a state of permanent emergency in Indian-administered Kashmir, through 'draconian' domestic laws that quell the political struggle and the rights of the people of Kashmir. Thousands have been killed in extrajudicial executions, scores have been arbitrarily detained, and many subjected to enforced disappearances. Sexual violence has been used as a weapon of war to subjugate an entire population. The political rights and basic freedoms of the people of Kashmir have been systematically denied to them by using domestic laws like the Armed Forces (Jammu and Kashmir) Special Powers Act 1990 and the Jammu and Kashmir Public Safety Act 1978, among others. This seminar will address how mass human rights violations are committed in Indian-administered Kashmir with impunity, and reflect on how the state of exception has been the norm in Kashmir for decades now. Habeel Iqbal is a lawyer from Indian-administered Kashmir working on human rights issues. He is a legal consultant with the Association of Parents of Disappeared Persons, an organisation working against enforced disappearances in Kashmir.
Douglas Guilfoyle gives a talk as part of the Oxford Transitional Justice Research (OTJR) Seminar Series. Following persistent rumours of criminal misconduct by some Australian Special Forces personnel in Afghanistan, an administrative inquiry was launched in 2016 by the Inspector-General of the Australian Defence Force. That inquiry's report revealed shocking evidence of 23 incidents involving 25 Australian personnel and resulting in 39 killings of persons hors de combat or under Australian control, as well as other misconduct. The inquiry recommended these incidents be prosecuted before ordinary civilian courts under Australia's war crimes legislation, which largely mirrors provisions of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court. A new investigative mechanism, the Office of the Special Investigator, has been established to this end. However, the report also suggested that military leaders above the patrol commander level bore only moral or professional responsibility and there should be no prosecutions based on command responsibility. These developments raise questions about the scope of command responsibility under international and Australian law, and the relationship between national investigative mechanisms and the International Criminal Court. Douglas Guilfoyle is Associate Professor of International and Security Law at the School of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of New South Wales Canberra. His principal areas of research are maritime security, the international law of the sea, and international and transnational criminal law. He was previously a Professor of Law at Monash University, Reader in Law at University College London, and has acted as a consultant to various governments and international organisations. In 2019-2020 he was a Visiting Legal Fellow at the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade. He is a regular contributor to the blog EJILTalk!
This talk was given as part of the Oxford Transitional Justice Research (OTJR) Seminar Series. In this seminar, Dr Craig Jones discusses his newly published book, The War Lawyers. Craig’s monograph examines the laws of war interpreted and applied by military lawyers to aerial targeting operations carried out by the US military in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the Israel military in Gaza. Drawing on interviews with military lawyers and others, he explains why some lawyers became integrated in the chain of command whereby military targets are identified and attacked, whether by manned aircraft, drones and/or ground forces, and with what results. Craig’s research shows just how important law and war lawyers have become in the conduct of contemporary warfare, and how it is understood. Jones argues that circulations of law and policy between the US and Israel have expanded the scope of what constitutes a legitimate military target, contending that the involvement of war lawyers in targeting operations not only constrains military violence, but also enables, legitimises, and sometimes even extends it. Dr Craig Jones is a Lecturer in Political Geography in the School of Geography, Sociology and Politics at Newcastle University. He completed his PhD in Geography at the University of British Columbia in 2017. He researches the geographies of later modern warfare and is especially interested legal and medical materialities of war and conflict in the contemporary Middle East. His current work focuses on the slow violence of traumatic injury and regimes of rehabilitation among civilian populations in Palestine, Iraq, and Syria. To learn more please visit the War Space website or follow him on Twitter @thewarspace.
This talk was given as part of the Oxford Transitional Justice Research (OTJR) Seminar Series. This panel discussion explores the role of art in transitional justice and the depiction of transitional justice through art. We are joined by panellists Leslie Thomas, Bernadette Vivuya and Nadia Siddiqui. The event was co-organised with the Oxford Institute for Ethics, Law and Armed Conflict. Leslie Thomas is the founder of ART WORKS Projects, an Emmy-award winning art director, architect, and mother. Current projects include directing The Prosecutors, curating a touring exhibition on ending female genital mutilation for the United Nations, and co-editing a book of photography on the impact of war on children in Syria. She is in pre-production on a narrative feature on women’s rights and in development on a film about the movement for Irish independence. Her multi-media human rights focused work has toured across five continents in major policy, academic, and cultural settings and been the recipient of grants from The National Endowment for the Arts, the MacArthur Foundation, the Open Society Foundations, the International Labour Organization, and many other major philanthropic institutions. Leslie is a graduate of Columbia University and the Georgetown University School of Foreign Service. Bernadette Vivuya is a visual journalist and filmmaker based in Goma, Eastern DRC. She is an alumnus in “Social justice photography: Decomposing the colonial gaze” led by Yole! Africa. She reports on issues related to human rights, the environment and the exploitation of raw materials, bearing witness to the resilience and transcendence of the people in this conflict-affected region. She most recently directed the short documentary 'Letter to my Child from Rape', which brings to the screen the powerful words of poet-advocate Désanges Kabuo as she braves prejudice to claim a future for the child she bore as a result of sexual violence. Nadia Siddiqui is a cross-disciplinary researcher and writer interested in the links between cultural practice, social dynamics, and justice. As a co-director at Social Inquiry, she leads research exploring identities and belonging in displacement (and return), measuring social cohesion, and understanding what reconciliation and accountability mean to communities. She has previously worked with Oxfam, the Middle East Research Institute, the Afghanistan Analysts Network, the Applied Theatre Collective, and the International Center for Transitional Justice, among others. Nadia has also helped produce art/design events in New York City that have garnered national and international attention. She holds a B.A. in Psychology from the University of Michigan and an MSc. in Evidence-Based Social Interventions from the University of Oxford.
This talk was given as part of the Oxford Transitional Justice Research (OTJR) Seminar Series. Art is a radical form of political participation in times of transition. Arising out of 11 months of fieldwork at the Constitutional Court of South Africa and the South Africa Pavilion at the Venice Art Biennale, which included 130 interviews with key decision makers, the book 'The Justice of Visual Art: Creative State-Building in Times of Transition' explores three important areas of transitional justice: the theoretical framing of justice and art; the visual jurisprudence of justice measures developed in transition; and, the cultural diplomacy practices of states emerging from conflict. In this seminar, we are joined by the author of the book, Dr Eliza Garnsey. Eliza Garnsey is a British Academy Postdoctoral Fellow in International Relations at the University of Cambridge and a Junior Research Fellow at Wolfson College Cambridge. She is currently in Australia as an Honorary Associate at the Centre for International Security Studies at the University of Sydney. Her research focuses on art and visual culture in international relations and world politics, particularly in relation to human rights, transitional justice, and conflict.
This talk was given as part of the Oxford Transitional Justice Research (OTJR) Seminar Series. Amnesties are a very common mechanism in transitions to democracy, approximately 85% of amnesties grant pardon to political crimes. However, the question of “what are political crimes in the amnesties context?” remains unanswered. The traditional approach laid by the duty to prosecute international crime and gross human rights violations used in international criminal law is not enough, there are numerous conducts which do not amount to international crimes and may still be contemplated with state clemency. Hence, there is a relevant explanatory gap regarding the definition of political crimes in amnesties, which may carry the space for a dangerous amount of state arbitrariness. This seminar will start by designing the characteristics of amnesties that impact political crimes concept, as well as the rationales and interests involved in amnesties. By scrutinizing the decision-making process of amnesties, the presentation aims to identify factors that might reflect the definition of political crimes. This talk provides insights into the elements that currently constitute political crimes in the amnesties context, and the challenges they pose to the fields of transitional justice and criminal justice. Renata Barbosa holds a PhD from the University of the State of Rio de Janeiro (UERJ), she is currently an Academic Visitor at the Latin American Centre at the University of Oxford and a member of OTJR. She is also a tutor and project manager at Maastricht University.
This talk was given as part of the Oxford Transitional Justice Research (OTJR) Seminar Series. Over the last five years, a variety of entities - governmental, non-governmental and those created by bodies within the United Nations - have determined that ISIS has committed war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide in areas it controlled in Iraq and Syria. The UN Commission of Inquiry on Syria and the US Holocaust Memorial Museum have independently determined that ISIS has committed genocide against the Yazidi religious community of northern Iraq, and underscored that the logic, nature, and commission of genocide has been highly gendered. Since the collapse of ISIS's "caliphate", the pursuit of criminal accountability has accelerated, though it remains hindered by a range of factors, including a struggling Iraqi justice system, and an unwillingness of many states to take back their nationals, many held in SDF detention centres and camps in northern Syria, for trial. Alongside this, there is also increased discussion of the desirability of a broader range of transitional justice measures. Sareta Ashraph hopes to address these issues. She has been working on documenting and analysing ISIS crimes in Syria and Iraq with the UN Commission of Inquiry, the Syria IIIM, and most recently UNITAD.
Sareta Ashraph is a barrister specialized in international criminal and humanitarian law. Until August 2019, she was based in Iraq as the Senior Analyst on the UN Investigative Team to Promote Accountability for Crimes Committed by Da’esh. In 2017, Sareta was part of the start-up team of the International, Impartial and Independent Mechanism (Syria IIIM). From May 2012 to November 2016, she served as the Chief Legal Analyst on the UN Commission of Inquiry on Syria where she was the primary drafter of the June 2016 report "They Came to Destroy", which determined that ISIS was committing genocide, as well as crimes against humanity and war crimes, against the Yazidis. In 2011 to 2012, she was the Analyst on the Commission of Inquiry on Libya. In 2010 and 2011, Sareta was the Legal Adviser to the ICC’s Defence Office. From 2004 to 2009, Sareta was Defence Co-Counsel before the SCSL. Sareta is an associate member of Garden Court Chambers (London), and is called to the Bar of England and Wales, as well as the Bar of the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago.
This talk was given as part of the Oxford Transitional Justice Research (OTJR) Seminar Series. Peace has been a notoriously difficult concept to measure because of the diverse ways in which it can be defined. Other than a general distinction between negative peace as the absence of violence, and positive peace as the absence of structural violence, i.e. norms, institutions, attitudes and societal features than can incite violence, there is little consensus on which norms, institutions, attitudes and societal features can nurture peace. On the one hand, policy makers need instruments to track progress on peace, whereas on the other hand, many peace scholars and practitioners suggest that peace is perhaps too complex to measure. I experienced this tension first-hand whilst leading a cross country participatory assessment of resilience in three post conflict contexts – Guatemala, Liberia and Timor-Leste – and subsequently when implementing population perception surveys on peace and justice in Eastern Congo. Last year, I conducted a systematic review of peace measurements, through which I identified 19 direct and proxy measures of peace that are used across policy and practice. In this talk, I will present the findings of the systematic review and situate them in the context of my experience with participatory approaches to defining and assessing peace in conflict affected contexts.
Anupah Makoond is currently reading for an MBA at the Saïd Business School, following an MSc. in Evidence Based Social Intervention and Policy Evaluation at the University of Oxford. Immediately prior to coming to Oxford, she led the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative’s Peace and Human Rights programmes in the DRC and the Great Lakes. Between 2014 and 2016 Anupah was the Programme Officer for Interpeace’s Frameworks for Assessing Resilience Programme.
This talk was the keynote seminar given as part of the Oxford Translational Justice Research (OTJR) Seminar Series Hope is generally elusive after a peace agreement that ends a civil war; Colombia is no exception. After Congress ratified a modified version of the peace agreement that lost the 2016 referendum, the FARC guerrillas demobilized and submitted to a newly created transitional justice court, the Special Jurisdiction for Peace; so did the Colombian military who had been tried for gross human rights abuses. The jurisdiction is meant to “keep victims at the centre,” advance the construction of peace, and favour restorative over retributive justice. It is tasked with the investigation of war crimes and crimes against humanity committed during the 50-year conflict, the identification of those responsible, and the provision of either reduced jail sentences or alternative restorative justice sentences for those sincerely committed to telling the truth and providing reparations. Is it possible to have victim-centred transitional justice, in spite of the sacrifice of justice it entails? Can a criminal trial open the way for the reincorporation of war criminals into society without a jail sentence? What kind of peace is possible in Colombia after the Peace Agreement, and what is the court’s role in contributing to peace? During the talk, we will address these issues through the lens of the jurisdictions’ first macro-case, case 01 against the FARC for kidnapping.
Julieta Lemaitre is a judge at the Justice Chambers of the Colombian Special Jurisdiction for Peace, created in 2018 to implement the transitional justice component of the 2016 Peace Agreements with the FARC guerrilla. She is currently the investigating judge for the peace jurisdiction’s first macro-case: charges against the policy and practice of kidnapping brought against the former guerrilla leaders.
Sexual and Gender Based Violence (SGBV) has become 'hyper-visible' in international criminal justice, yet scholars disagree whether this is a good thing for feminism or not. In focusing on the normative question of whether international criminal law can be a force for good, the empirical question, namely what exactly happens when critical concepts such as gender are incorporated into international criminal justice institutions has been neglected. Drawing on 63 interviews at the International Criminal Court in The Hague and in Uganda, this paper argues that a gender backlash has been fomenting in international criminal justice with some practitioners expressing their discomfort with the ‘ubiquitous gender discourse’. They point out that the Court’s ‘gender agenda’ is in no small part driven from ‘outside’ and lament that it neglects sexual crimes against men. The paper shows how gender is recuperated by playing into legal sensibilities that see procedure (impartiality) rather than substantive change as the essence of (criminal) law. While patriarchy is often mystified as a ‘historical legacy’ in legal institutions, this paper explores the ongoing discursive and institutional reproduction of patriarchal assumptions by making them more palatable to contemporary sensibilities.
This talk was given as part of the Oxford Transitional Justice Research (OTJR) Seminar Series. Leila Nadya Sadat is the James Carr Professor of International Criminal Law and Director of the Whitney R. Harris World Law Institute. She serves as Special Adviser on Crimes Against Humanity to the ICC Prosecutor, and in 2008 launched the Crimes Against Humanity Initiative, a ground-breaking project to write the world's first global treaty on crimes against humanity. She is a prolific scholar in the fields of public international law, international criminal law, human rights and foreign affairs, and has published more than 100 books and articles in leading journals, academic presses, and media outlets.
This talk was given as part of the Oxford Transitional Justice Research (OTJR) Seminar Series. Oxford Transitional Justice Research and the Bonavero Institute are co-hosting a discussion with William A. Schabas, Professor of International Law at Middlesex University, on his latest book, The Trial of the Kaiser, an account of the attempted prosecution of Kaiser Wilhelm II after the First World War.
This talk was given as part of the Oxford Transitional Justice Research (OTJR) Seminar Series. Why are certain responses to past human rights violations considered instances of transitional justice while others are disregarded? This talk interrogates the history of the discourse and practice of the field to answer that question. Zunino argues that a number of characteristics inherited as transitional justice emerged as a discourse in the 1980s and 1990s have shaped which practices of the present and the past are now regarded as valid responses to past human rights violations.
This talk was given as part of the Oxford Transitional Justice Research (OTJR) Seminar Series. To Un-Become is a multimedia art project which explores the concept of un-becoming through revisiting Operation Storm in Yugoslavia and its consequences over two decades later.
This talk was given as part of the Oxford Transitional Justice Research (OTJR) Seminar Series. This panel discussion explores the issue of accountability in Sri Lanka using three lenses. Each lens will be applied to a specific human rights challenge that is associated with impunity in the country: violence against religious minorities, torture, and enforced disappearance.
This talk was given as part of the Oxford Transitional Justice Research (OTJR) Seminar Series. Scholars reflecting on the participation of African witnesses in international trials have argued that 'culture' is an impediment. While some judges at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) supported this position, the majority of judges and lawyers placed emphasis on other impediments to witness testimony unrelated to Rwandan culture, including simultaneous interpretation, the question and answer format of witness examination, protection orders and the consequences of witnesses having given testimony in multiple trials. The paper assesses whether the consequences of these non-cultural impediments have been misrepresented as being due to 'culture' and how this relates to the essentialising and demeaning of 'culture' in domestic legal contexts.
This talk was given as part of the Oxford Transitional Justice Research (OTJR) Seminar Series. Thierry Cruvellier, journalist and author, is the editor of JusticeInfo.net and an Op-ed contributor to The New York Times. For more than twenty years, he has been covering war crimes trials before international tribunals for Rwanda, Sierra Leone, Bosnia and Cambodia, as well as national justice efforts in Colombia and the Balkans. More recently he has covered the trial of Hissène Habré before the Extraordinary African Chambers, in Senegal.
This talk was given as part of the Oxford Transitional Justice Research (OTJR) Seminar Series. In 'When Political Transitions Work', Fanie du Toit, who has been a participant and close observer in post-conflict developments throughout Africa for decades, offers a new theory for why South Africa's reconciliation worked and why its lessons remain relevant for other nations emerging from civil conflicts.
This talk was given as part of the Oxford Transitional Justice Research (OTJR) Seminar Series. In the aftermath of the ‘no’ victory in the Colombian peace plebiscite, great emphasis has been placed on youth movements’ push for peace. However, statistics on violent groups in Latin America show that these groups are largely made of young people. The position of young people at the crux between peacebuilding and perpetuation of violence needs to be contextually unpacked. While studies have tended to focus on youth movements, the question of how non-organised, (self-)marginalised youths relate to peacebuilding is largely unaddressed. Based on 9 months of ethnographic fieldwork with outcast adolescents in the conflict-affected town of San Carlos and marginal neighbourhoods in the close-by city Medellín, this paper addresses this gap.
This talk was given as part of the Oxford Transitional Justice Research (OTJR) Seminar Series. Prof Lattanzi’s presentation will first deal with the question of immunities of high-ranking state officials as posed by the Commission created in 1919 by the Paris Peace Conference. In a next step, it will illustrate the facts of the Al-Bashir case with a particular emphasis on the questions posed by Jordan before the ICC appeals bench. The last and most sensitive part of the presentation will consider the argument that the ICC is not endowed with coercive powers in situations when the Rome Statute obligates a State to arrest and surrender to the Court a high-ranking state official.
This talk was given as part of the Oxford Transitional Justice Research (OTJR) Seminar Series. Myanmar's mass-atrocities against the Rohingya minority, qualified by UN sources as a genocide, is one of the most pressing accountability challenges of our time. This has resulted in a mass-exodus of up to 1 million refugees in neighbouring Bangladesh with harrowing stories of violence. Given the failure of the UN Security Council to make a Chapter VII referral to the ICC, what options are available for eradicating impunity?
Dr Nicola Palmer analyzes the role that international criminal law in the extradition, deportation or domestic prosecution of Rwandan nationals. This paper draws on an independently generated dataset of 120 cases concerning 100 Rwandan nationals decided in 20 countries around the world. This dataset enables an analysis of the role that international criminal law is playing in their extradition, deportation or domestic prosecution. It argues that the differences in legal reasoning across these cases are underpinned by the different types of expressive work done by these legal proceeding. These cases communicate not only an on-going commitment to recognising the universal wrong of genocide, but also more ambiguous messaging about what constitutes a fair trial in Rwanda, who constitutes a ‘criminal migrant’ and, to a Rwandan audience, the transnational penal reach of the Rwandan state.
Amnesties are widely used during and after armed conflicts. Despite their controversial nature, international policymakers such as the UN continue to recognise some forms of amnesty in these settings are necessary to facilitate conflict resolution. However, the specific forms and functions of amnesties during conflict and peace, and how they are tied to the negotiation and implementation of the broader peace process have rarely been subject to systematic academic analysis. In this presentation, Mallinder will present work that she is currently undertaking to this gap in the literature.
This study examines Peru's status of indigenous peoples' rights. Specifically, it assesses the state’s respect towards indigenous rights through a case omitted by the TRC but one that continues to dominate political rhetoric: the forced sterilization of women of indigenous and poor economic backgrounds. Specifically, the study focuses on memory initiatives within symbolic reparations and the TRC's Final Report, and how these two processes have situated the case of forced sterilization within the broader context of the internal armed conflict.
Transitional justice scholarship and practice has predominantly operated on the assumption that transitions entail a shift from violent, authoritarian rule to liberal, democratic rule. As we all know, this has not been the case in the Arab region. Instead, transitional justice has served as a battleground for competing visions of justice. Demons of the past that have morphed into the present continue to hijack transitional justice processes, and in particular the prosecution of political leaders.
The International Criminal Court (ICC) is struggling at every level of its operations in Africa - in terms of its investigations, prosecutions, and relations with domestic governments, judiciaries and affected communities. This raises key questions about whether, after 16 years of consistent shortcomings and mounting frustration even among some of its most ardent supporters, the Court can survive. The Court's conceptual and practical 'distance' from the places where crimes are committed greatly undermines its effectiveness and requires a major rethink about how international criminal justice is conducted, especially in the Global South. This presentation lays out the main arguments of my new book, Distant Justice: The Impact of the International Criminal Court on African Politics (Cambridge University Press), and draws on 20 months of fieldwork in central Africa and The Hague since 2006, including 650 interviews with ICC officials, domestic political, legal and civil society actors, and local communities.
Rebel courts are often justified by rebels in the interest of securing law and order, states’ perceptions are more negative, especially the territorial state concerned. This raises questions under international humanitarian law, human rights law and international criminal law on the legality of such courts and of fair trial guarantees. The dilemma of rebel courts reveals opposing interests in international humanitarian law and international criminal law and raises important policy considerations.
While there is broad consensus that victims of mass atrocities have a right to reparation for harm suffered, the effective implementation of that right is a promise as yet largely unfulfilled. This talk will consider some of the key challenges, within and outside domestic reparation programmes in countries undergoing transitions, that need to be surpassed for the effective realisation of this right.
Julia Viebach investigates the everyday of witnessing at Rwanda’s Gacaca courts and contrasts its findings with the process of witnessing at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR). Please note, this episode ends abruptly.
Dr. Cheryl Lawther explore the construction and meaning of victimhood in post-conflict Northern Ireland.
Dr Katarína Sipulova gives a talk for the OTJR seminar series. In the context of the constitutional crises spreading through Hungary, Romania, and Poland and increasing doubts about the EU’s ability to safeguard its fundamental values and prevent the democratic backsliding of member states after the accession conditionality loses force, Dr Katarína Sipulova analyzes the EU’s democratizing influence and the political and legal measures chosen by different actors and EU institutions to exert it.
Gwen Burnyeat discusses her book: 'Chocolate, Politics and Peace-Building: An Ethnography of the Peace Community of San José de Apartadó, Colombia' with Laura Rival. This study, centered on the Peace Community’s socio-economic cacao-farming project, offers an innovative way of approaching victims’ organizations and social movements through critical, post-modern politics and anthropology.
Eliot Higgins, founder of Bellingcat and Brown Moses Blog, speaks on the use of open-source information.
Professor Siobhan Wills discusses the UN Peacekeeping mission in Haiti and her documentary.
William O'Neill gives an insider perspective into the UN Peacekeeping Missoin in Kosovo.
David Copello, Raluca Grosescu, and Sophie Daviaud give a talk for the OTJR Seminar Series.
Laura S. Martin (University of Birmingham) gives a talk for the OTJR Seminar Series. https://www.law.ox.ac.uk/events/transitions-justice-and-normality-everyday-experiences-post-conflict-sierra-leone
Rebekka Friedman (King’s College London) gives a talk for the OTJR Seminar Series. https://www.law.ox.ac.uk/events/competing-memories-truth-and-reconciliation-sierra-leone-and-peru
Alex Wilks and Nisha Iswaran, Justice Advisors in the UK Government’s Stabilisation Unit, give a talk for the OTJR Seminar Series. https://www.law.ox.ac.uk/events/transitional-justice-and-stabilisation-risks-or-opportunities
Ruvi Ziegler (Reading) discusses his new book with Kirsten McConnachie (Warwick), Matthew Gibney (Oxford), and Liora Lazarus (Oxford) at a joint OTJR/RMLDG event. https://www.law.ox.ac.uk/events/book-colloquium-voting-rights-refugees
Briony Jones, Assistant Professor at the Politics and International Studies department of the University of Warwick, gives a talk for the OTJR Seminar Series. https://www.law.ox.ac.uk/events/seeking-just-justice-discursive-strategies-resistance-cote-divoire
Bruno Galindo, Associate Professor at the Federal University of Pernambuco (UFPE) (Brazil), gives a talk for the OTJR Seminar Series. https://www.law.ox.ac.uk/events/transitional-justice-brazil-and-jurisprudence-inter-american-court-human-rights
Ziv Bohrer, Assistant Professor at Bar-Ilan University, gives a talk for the OTJR Seminar Series on the pre-WWII history of international criminal law.
Pablo de Greiff, UN Special Rapporteur on the promotion of truth, justice, reparation, and guarantees of non-recurrence, gives a talk for the OTJR 10th Anniversary Event.
Deborah Posel, Professor of Sociology at UCT, gives a talk for the OTJR Seminar Series.
Antoine Buyse, Director of the Netherlands Institute of Human Rights, gives a talk for the OTJR Seminar Series.
Judge Manuel José Cepeda Espinosa gives a talk for the OTJR seminar series on 10th May 2017.
Leigh Payne, Cristian Olmos Herrera, Sebastian Smart and Marcos Gonzalez Hernando give a talk for the OTJR seminar series.
Prof Philippe Sands (QC) presents his new book in a colloquium with Prof Dapo Akande and Dr Stephen Humphreys in the OTJR series.
Aidan Ellis, Haydee Dijkstal, Dr Mishana Hosseinioun and Sir Geoffrey Nice QC, give a talk for the OTJR seminar series on 9th Novemebr 2016. Sir Geoffrey Nice QC, Barrister and former Prosecutor at the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY), Dr. Mishana Hosseinioun, Justice Advocate and International Relations Scholar at St. Antony’s College, University of Oxford, Aidan Ellis, Temple Garden Chambers and Haydee Dijkstal.
Dr Yuna Han, Postdoctoral Researcher in International Relations, European University Institute gives a talk for the OTJR seminar seires on 19th October 2016.
Professor Kevin Jon Heller, Chair in Criminal Law, SOAS, University of London, gives a talk for the OJR seminar series on 12th October 2016.
Dr Zachary Kaufman launches the book; United States Law and Policy on Transitional Justice: Principles, Politics, and Pragmatics (Oxford University Press, 2016).
Leila Ullrich, PhD in Criminology, Faculty of Law, University of Oxford, gives a talk for the OTJR seminar series.
Matilde Gawronski, PhD in Socio-Legal Studies, University of Oxford, five a talk for the OTJR seminar series.
Nicole de Silva, IKEA Research Fellow in International Relations at Oxford, gives a talk for the OTJR seminar series on 2nd March 2016.
Dr Holly Porter, gives a talk for the Oxford Transitional Justice Research Seminar series on 24th February 2016.
Dr. Carla Ferstman (Director of REDRESS), gives a talk for the OTJR Seminar series on 3rd February 2016.
A Panel Conversation with Ruti Teitel Reflecting on ‘Globalizing Transitional Justice' held on 4th December 2015. With Prof. Ruti Teitel, Ernst C. Stiefel Professor of Comparative Law and Director of the Institute for Global Law, Justice and Policy at New York Law School, Prof. Leigh Payne, Professor of Sociology, University of Oxford, Prof. Chandra Sriram, Professor of International Law and International Relations, University of East London, Dr. Iavor Rangelov, Global Security Research Fellow, London School of Economics and Prof. Kalypso Nicolaidis (Chair), Professor of International Relations, University of Oxford
Dr Valerie Oosterveld, Associate Professor at the Centre for Transitional Justice and Post-Conflict Reconstruction, University of Western Ontario, gives a talk for the OTJR Seminar Series.
Prof Alan Norrie, Professor at the School of Law, University of Warwick, gives a talk for the OTJR Seminar series on 25th November 2015.
Dr Brianne McGonigle Leyh gives a talk for the OTJR seminar series on the International Criminal Courts and Human Rights on 4th November 2015.
Guido Acquaviva, Senior Legal Officer (Chambers), gives a talk for the OTJR seminar series on 14th October 2015.
Book launch of Dr. Nicola Palmer's book 'Courts in Conflict'. The Discussant: Jonny Steinberg.
Mark J. Osiel,University of Iowa, gives a talk for the OTJR seminar series. The discussant is Prof Pavlos Eleftheriadis, Faculty of Law, University of Oxford.
Nimer Sultany, University of London, gives a talk for the OTJR seminar series on Monday, 1 June 2015.
Sarah Nouwen, University of Cambridge, gives a talk for the OTJR seminar series on 18 May at 5pm
Kirsten Ainley, London School of Economics, gives a talk for the OTJR seminar series on 11 May at 5pm
James Hughes, London School of Economics, gives a talk for the OTJR seminar series on 27 April 2015 at 5pm
Dr. Jonathan Leader Maynard gives a talk for the OTJR seminar series on 26 January 2015 at 5pm
Dr. Stephen Winter, Senior Lecturer in Political Theory, University of Auckland gives a talk for the OTJR seminar series on 1st December 2014.
Dr. Daniel Butt, Associate Professor in Political Theory, Department of Politics and International Relations, University of Oxford gives a talk for the OTJR seminar series on 17th November 2014.
Leila Ullrich, PhD Candidate, Centre for Criminology, University of Oxford gives a talk for the OTJR seminar series on 3rd November 2014.
Dr. Phil Clark, Reader in Comparative and International Politics, SOAS, University of London gives a talk for the OTJR semianr series on 27th October 2014.
David Josse, QC, gives a talk about working on the defense council at the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia on the trials of Momcilo Krajisnik and then Milan Gvero.
Dr. Michael Gibb -Lecturer in Philosophy at University College, Oxford and Project Coordinator for No Peace Without Justice, Libya gives a talk for the OTJR seminar series.
Dr Akin Akinwumi - Researcher, Department of Geography, Simon Fraser University, gives a talk for the OTJR seminar series.
Lorena Balardini, Co-ordinator of Research, Centre of Legal and Social Studies, Argentina, gives a talk for the OTJR seminar series.
James Stewart, Deputy Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, gives a talk for the OTJR seminar sries.
Prof. Susanne Buckley-Zistel -Director of the Centre for Conflict Studies, Philipps - University of Marburg, gives a talk for the OTJR seminar series.
Dr. Claire Moon (Senior Lecturer, Department of Sociology and the Human Rights Centre, London School of Economics and Political Science) gives a talk for the OTJR seminar series.
Lionel Nichols (St. Anne's Global Justice Research Fellow, University of Oxford) gives a talk for the OTJR seminar series.
Dr. Mina Rauschenbach (Research Fellow, Geneva Academy of International Humanitarian Law and Human Rights, University of Geneva) gives a talk for the OTJR seminar series.
Dr. Simon Robins (Humanitarian Practitioner and Associate, Post War Reconstruction and Development Unit, University of York) gives a talk for the OTJR seminar series.
Dr Francesca Lessa (LAC and St. Anne's College), gives a talk for the OTJR seminar series.
Gary Geddes, Award winning writer and author of 'Drink the Bitter Root: A search for justice and healing in Africa' gives a talk for the OTJR Seminar Series.
Nancy Combs, Vice Dean and Professor of Law, Director of the Human Security Law Center, and Director of the Madrid Summer Law Program, William and Mary Law School gives a talk for the OTJR Seminar Series.
Peter Rush, Professor at the Centre for Transitional Legal Studies, London, gives a talk for the OTJR Seminar Series.
Dr. Francesca Lessa, Postdoctoral Researcher (Latin American Centre) and Junior Research Fellow (St Anne's College), University of Oxford, gives a talk for the OTJR Seminar Series.
Marcie Mersky, Director of Program Office, International Center for Transitional Justice; Chair of Impunity Watch gives a talk as part of the OTJR seminar series and as part of the Oak Series on Amnesty.
Prof. Darryl Robinson, Professor of Law, Queen's University, Canada, gives a talk for the OTJR Seminar Series.
Dr. Glenda Mezarobba, Research Fellow, Universidade de Campinas; Executive Director,. 'The Role of the US in the Structure of Global Governance' project, National Institute of Science and Technology for US Studies gives a talk for the OTJR Seminar Series.
Dr Diego Muro, Santander Visiting Fellow, St. Antony's College, University of Oxford, gives a talk for the OTJR Seminar Series.
Asanga!Weikala, PhD Candidate, School of Law, University of Edinburgh gives a talk for the OTJR trinity term 2012 seminar series.
Dr. Kirsten Ainley, Lecturer in International Relations, London School of Economics gives a talk for the OTJR seminar series on 1st May 2012.
Prof. Cynthia E. Milton, Professor of Latin American History, Université de Montréal gives a talk for the OTJR seminar series on 28th February.
Sandra Rubli, Research Analyst, Swisspeace, gives a talk for the OTJR hilary term 2012 seminar series.
Felipe Michelini, Deputy, Uruguayan Chamber of Deputies; Co-founder, Public Policy Institute of Human Rights Mercosur (IPPDH).
Betty Bigombe, Ugandan MP, State Minister for Water Resources, and Ugandan Peace Negotiator gives a talk for the OTJR seminar series on 7th February. Part of the Oak series on Amnesty.
Rudina Jasini, DPhil Candidate in Law, University of Oxford; Legal Officer at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) gives a talk for the OTJR Hilary term seminar series on 31st January.
Book launch of Francis Cheneval and Sylvie Ramel's book on Bosnia-Herzegovina with Prof. Richard Caplan, Dr. Alex Jeffrey, Cecile Jouhanneau, Eleanor Pritchard, Eldar Sarajlic, Dr. Nenad Stojanovic.
Co-Hosted with Amnesty International, Dr. Francesca Lessa, Research Assistant, Latin American Centre, University of Oxford gives a talk for the OTJR seminar series.
Courtenay Griffiths, Queen's Counsel (Joint-head of Garden Court Chambers), Defence Lawyer for Charles Taylor, gives a talk for the OTJR seminar series.
Hannah Tonkin, Lawyer at the UN International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, gives a talk to launch her new book on State control over private military companies in areas of armed conflict.
Book launch event to promote the release of The Memory of State Terrorism in the Southern Cone: Argentina, Chile, and Uruguay by Francesca Lessa and Vincent Druliolle (editors). Chaired by Dr Diego Sanchez Ancochea. Please note: During the recording of this event there was some interference from mobile phones, although this has not rendered the podcast completely unusable, there is some distortion and we apologise for this.
The Reflection of the Israeli-German Relationship in Israeli Dance from the 1970s till Nowadays. Dana Mills, DPhil candidate in Political Theory, University of Oxford gives a talk for the OTJR seminar series, introduced by Phil Clark.
Dr. Francesca Lessa, Research Assistant, Latin American Centre, University of Oxford gives a seminar for the OTJR seminar series on 17th May 2011.
Prof. Paul Gready, Director of the Centre for Applied Human Rights, University of York, gives a talk for the OTJR seminar Series on South Africa and Transitional Justice. Introduced by Phil Clark.
Dr. Melanie Klinkner, Lecturer in Law, Bournemouth University gives a talk for the OTJR Seminar series on 7th June 2011.
Peter Manning, PhD candidate in Sociology, London School of Economics and Political Science, gives a talk for the Oxford Transitional Justice Research seminar series.
Emily Winterbotham, Researcher in Transitional Justice, Afghanistan Research and Evaluation Unit, Kabul, gives a talk for the Oxford Transitional Justice Research Seminar series on 31st May 2011.
Stephen Parmentier, Professor of Criminology Leuven Institute of Criminology, K.U.Leuven, gives a talk for the Oxford Transitional Justice Research Seminar series on 26th May 2011.
Special lecture by Sir Geoffrey Nice QC. Deputy prosecutor in the trial of Slobodan Milosevic in The Hague. He has led several cases at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia since 1998. He will provide his perspective on these cases and the work of international criminal courts and tribunals.
Dr. Nathalie Nguyen, Associate Professor of Historical and Philosophical Studies, University of Melbourne, gives the first Oxford Transisiional Justice Research Seminar 2011 Trinity term on 3rd May 2011.
Dr. Mark Laffey, Senior Lecturer in International Relations, SOAS, University of London, gives a talk for the OTJR seminar series on 8th March 2011.
Panel Discussion Dr. Phil Clark recently published 'The Gacaca Courts, Post-Genocide Justice and Reconciliation in Rwanda: Justice without Lawyers'. Drawing on 7 years of ethnographic fieldwork and more than 500 interviews, this is the first book-length analysis of the entirety of the gacaca process.
Jocelyn alexander gives a talk for the Hilary Term 2011 Oxford Transitional Justice Research Seminar Series on the 16th February 2011.
Dapo Akande, Lecturer in Public International Law; Co-Director, Oxford Institute for Ethics, Law and Armed Conflict (ELAC), University of Oxford gives a talk for the Oxford Transitional Justice Research Seminar Series.
Director for the Centre for International Human Rights Dr Damien Short gives a talk for the 2011 Hilary term Oxford Transitional Justice Research Seminar Series.
Neil MacFarlane, Professor of International Relations, University of Oxford gives the first in the 2011 Hilary Term seminars for the Oxford Transitional Justice Research seminar series.
Chris Mahony, DPhil Candidate in Politics, Oxford University gives a talk for the Oxford Transitional Justice Research Seminar Series.
Judge Sergio Gabriel Torres, Federal Judge in Criminal and Correctional Matters in Buenos Aires, Argentina, and Academic Vice President for Argentina at the Ibero-American Criminal Law Institute gives a talk for the OTJR seminar series.
Psychological Analysis of Collective Amnesia in Lebanon and its Implications for Transistional Justice.
Delivered by Rev. Dr. Liz Carmichael MBE, Chaplain and Tutor in Theology, St John's College, University of Oxford; and Facilitator and Trainer under the National Peace Accord. Part of the Oxford Transitional Justice Research Seminar Series, Trinity 2010. Recorded 15 June 2010.
Delivered by Benjamin Ferencz, Chief Prosecutor of the Einsatzgruppen Case at the Nuremberg Trials, 1947-8. Part of the Oxford Transitional Justice Research Seminar Series, Trinity 2010. Recorded 26 May 2010.
Delivered by Dr. Jonny Steinberg, Author and Journalist; Visiting Fellow, African Studies Centre, University of Oxford. Part of the Oxford Transitional Justice Research Seminar Series, Trinity 2010. Recorded 18 May 2010.
A round table discussion led by Professor Ron Atkinson, Director of African Studies, University of South Carolina. Part of the Oxford Transitional Justice Research Seminar Series, Trinity 2010. Recorded 12 May 2010.
2 lectures. Justice for Whom? Assessing Local Responses to Transitional Justice in Rwanda, Cambodia and Sierra Leone and Peddling Influence: A Rwandan Response to the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda. Recorded 11 May 2010.
Delivered by Juan Mendez, President Emeritus, International Center for Transitional Justice, and former UN Secretary-General's Special Adviser on the Prevention of Genocide. Part of the Oxford Transitional Justice Research Seminar Series, Trinity 2010. Recorded 7 May 2010.
Sandra Fredman gives a talk for the Oxford Transitional Justice Research 2010 seminar series followed by Sabine Michalowski giving her talk entitled 'Bringing Socio-Economic Factors into the Transitional Justice Debate'.
Seminar given on 22nd February 2010 by Peter Robinson, Legal Advisor for former Bosnian Serb President, Radovan Karadzic, ICTY and Lead Counsel for former President of the Rwandan National Assembly, Joseph Nzirorera, ICTR.
Seminar given by Naseem Badiey, DPhil candidate in Politics, University of Oxford, and Visiting Scholar in the Center for African Studies, University of California, Berkeley on the 15th of february 2010.
Seminar delivered on Monday 8 February 2010 by Dr. Rama Mani, Senior Research Associate, Centre for International Studies, University of Oxford, and Project Director, Ending Mass Atrocities - Echoes in the South.
Seminar delivered on Monday 1st February 2010 by Ralph Henham, Professor of Criminal Justice, Nottingham Trent University.
Seminar delivered on Monday 18 January 2010 by Dr. Daniel Butt, Lecturer in Political Theory, University of Bristol.
Seminar delivered on Tuesday 1 December 2009 by Par Engstrom, Lecturer in Human Rights, Human Rights Consortium, School of Advanced Study, University of London.
Seminar delivered on Tuesday 17 November 2009 by Dr. Alex Jeffrey, Lecturer in Human Geography, Newcastle University.
Seminar delivered on Tuesday 10 November 2009 by Janice Winter, Programme Manager, Axess Programme on Journalism and Democracy.
Seminar delivered on Tuesday 10 November 2009 by Dr. Blessing Miles Tendi, Researcher, University of Oxford.
Seminar delivered on Tuesday 4 November 2009 by Dr. Claudia Gazzini, Max Weber Fellow, European University Institute, Florence.