This Week’s Seminar

Week 5, Tuesday (21 May 2013) 5:00pm

Dr Simon Robins

From Victims to Actors: Participatory Approaches to Transitional Justice in Nepal(Seminar Room D, Manor Road Building)

The discourse of transitional justice has emerged as a response to the needs of societies emerging from conflict or political violence and has become one of the preferred lenses through which to examine democratising states. Transitional justice processes and the mechanisms through which they work tend, however, to be prescriptive and top-down: they are created by elites, supported by an international community remote from the context and from indigenous understandings. There remains a dearth of praxis that interrogates the idea of a transitional justice driven by the grassroots. This study investigates victim mobilisation: one of the few ways in which the views of those most impacted by the legacies of violence can challenge such prescriptive approaches and impact in a transitional context. The bulk of victims of Nepal’s conflict are poor and socially excluded, live in rural areas far from the capital, lack education and are ignorant of their rights. Social movements of conflict victims constitute one of the few routes to increasing victim agency in a transition which largely ignores them. This study attempts to understand how victims’ understandings of their needs of transition diverge from those of elites, and the frames they use to both articulate their demands and around which they mobilise. This paper reports data from participatory action research undertaken with and by families of persons disappeared during Nepal’s conflict, through an engagement with locally organised family associations. An effort is made to understand both the challenges and possibilities of victim mobilisation as a strategy to ensure agency of the most marginalised in a transitional justice process, and the remoteness of much of the elite agenda from victims’ concerns.

Simon Robins is a humanitarian practitioner and researcher with an interest in transitional justice, humanitarian protection and human rights. His work is driven by a desire to put the needs of victims of conflict at the heart of efforts to address its legacies, and the issue of persons disappeared and missing in armed conflict remains a focus. He has a PhD from the Post-war Reconstruction and Development Unit at the University of York and has consulted with a range of international agencies.

Forthcoming Events and Reminders

Week 5, Tuesday (21 May 2013) 5:00pm	Dr Simon Robins	From Victims to Actors: Participatory Approaches to Transitional Justice in Nepal
Week 6,Monday (27 May 2013) 5:00pm	Dr Mina Rauschenbach	A Critical Analysis of Involvement and Accountability as Recorded by Individuals Accused of International Crimes at the ICTY
Week 7, Tuesday (4 June 2013) 5:00pm	Lionel Nichols	The International Criminal Court and the End of Impunity in Kenya
Week 8, Tuesday (11 June 2013) 5:00pm	Dr Claire Moon	Do Bones Have Politics? Forensic Knowledge About Bones in the Politics of the Past

Two Book Launches

On Thursday morning at 11:00am, Nuffield College will be hosting the launch of After Oppression: Transitional Justice in Latin America and Eastern Europe.  The book has been commended by distinguished scholars and will be presented by three of its authors: Kathryn Sikkink, Laurence Whitehead and Vesselin Popovski.  Please click here for further details.

On Friday afternoon at 5:00pm, Francesca Lessa will be launching her book, entitled Memory and Transitional Justice in Argentina and Uruguay: Against Impunity.  The event is being hosted by the Latin American Centre and Professor Kathryn Sikkink will be the discussant.  Further details are available here.  A reminder that members can purchase the book for half price (£29.00) by clicking here and quoting discount code WLESSA2013a.

Online Debate on International Monitors and the Reporting of Mass Conflict

Our online debate continues to generate a tremendous amount of interest from all over the world.  This week the proposer (Jason Stearns) and the opponent (Phil Clark) submitted their responses.  While the two agree that there needs to be greater scrutiny of international monitors and investigators working in complex conflict zones, there is quite a bit that they do not agree upon!  The debate raises some important issues about the accountability of international monitors in the production of their reports and is a must-read.  You can also contribute to the debate via the comments section at the bottom of the page.

This Week’s Seminar

Week 4, Tuesday (14 May 2013) 5:00pm	Dr Kirsten McConnachie	Governing Refugees: Justice, Order and Legal Pluralism in a Refugee Camp(Seminar Room D, Manor Road Building)

Refugee camps are imbued in the public imagination with assumptions of anarchy, danger and refugee passivity.  This paper challenges such assumptions by showing that refugee camps can also be spaces where social order is maintained and social capital not only survives, but thrives. Based on extensive fieldwork with refugees from Burma living in Thailand, the paper will detail the role of the refugee population in camp governance and the administration of justice, touching on themes including the production of order beyond the state, justice as a contested site, and the influence of transnational human rights discourses on local justice practice.

Kirsten McConnachie is Joyce Pearce Junior Research Fellow at the University of Oxford Refugee Studies Centre. Her doctoral research at Queen’s University Belfast (2007 – 2011) studied camp governance and justice practices among refugees on the Thai-Burma border. Her current research is a comparative study of self-governance within Burma/Myanmar’s displaced populations in Thailand, Bangladesh, India and China.

Forthcoming Events and Reminders

Week 4, Tuesday (14 May 2013) 5:00pm	Dr Kirsten McConnachie	Governing Refugees: Justice, Order and Legal Pluralism in a Refugee Camp
Week 4, Friday (17 May 2013) 5:00pm	Dr Francesca Lessa, Prof Kathryn Sikkink	Book Launch – Memory and Transitional Justice in Argentina and Uruguay: Against Impunity (Latin American Centre)
Week 5, Tuesday (21 May 2013) 5:00pm	Dr Simon Robbins	From Victims to Actors: Participatory Approaches to Transitional Justice in Nepal
Week 6,Monday (27 May 2013) 5:00pm	Dr Mina Rauschenbach	A Critical Analysis of Involvement and Accountability as Recorded by Individuals Accused of International Crimes at the ICTY

Online Debate on International Monitors and the Reporting of Mass Conflict

OTJR’s first online debate was launched less than two weeks ago but in that time has received more than 2,000 hits and been re-tweeted by Time Magazine and the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights.  This week, Koen Vlassenroot from the University of Ghent, added his opening remarks as moderator.  The debate highlights some of the most challenging, controversial and complex issues in field of transitional justice, so please be sure to take a moment to check it out.  You can also add your own thoughts via the comments section at the bottom of the page.