Description
This is a project to analyze the cultural environment within which western and some non-western justice systems deal with episodes of egregious political violence. It sets out to test the validity of the conclusion that the western-style criminal justice approach should necessarily constitute the only (or even perhaps, the main) mechanism through which the international community seeks to deal with past atrocities. The first part undertakes a critical re-examination of some aspects of the philosophy of western-style "retributive justice," in order to test whether this approach is indeed well-suited to helping societies deal with grave conflicts. The second part examines the philosophies behind some alternative approaches to dealing with past episodes of violence. These include the approach used by the Truth and Reconciliation Committee, which was based on traditional African concepts or ubuntu; Muslim concepts of sulha (reconciliation); and "restorative justice." The third part focuses on two parall tribunals dealing with Rwanda. The fourth part relates to field research in Rwanda and Tanzania, and beyond. Finally, the study looks at the feasibility of the U.N. giving some support to the development of "restorative justice" mechanisms as a complement to its current strong stress on "retributive justice" mechanisms in cases of grave breaches of international humanitarian law.
