Thinking Critically about Armed Groups and Human Rights Praxis

Dudai, Ron; McEvoy, Kieran

doi:10.1093/jhuman/hus014

Cited by 17 publications

(9 citation statements)

References 31 publications

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“…IRA and INLA violence, though, challenged this neat legalistic framework due to indeterminacy over whether the requisite intensity for invoking IHL was satisfied, whether the conflict was international or non-international in nature, whether NSAGs distinguished themselves from the civilian population and over who could be legitimately targeted (Dudai & McEvoy 2012). Indeed, where socio-legal scholars have been prepared to critically apply an IHL lens to Northern Ireland this has been through the prism of an internal armed conflict satisfying Common Article 3 rather than through the Irish republican prism of a war of national liberation (Bell, Campbell & Ni Aolain 2004;Caesar 2017).…”

Section: The Irish Republican Frameworkmentioning

confidence: 99%

Victims Who Have Done Nothing or Victims Who Have Done Nothing Wrong: Contesting Blame and ‘Innocent Victim’ Status in Transitioning Societies

Hearty

2019

The British Journal of Criminology

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Building on recent victimological interventions in transitional justice, this article critically examines nuanced interpretations of what an ‘innocent victim’ is in transitioning societies without any agreed legal, political or moral base position on past political violence. It suggests that the term refers to two different types of victims: victims who have done nothing that fit traditional victimological understandings of the blameless, passive ‘ideal victim’ and victims who have done nothing wrong where innocence and blame are open to fundamental political and moral contest. It concludes that the irreconcilability, looseness and adaptability of competing frameworks for understanding the past pose a core victimological disagreement surrounding victims who have done nothing wrong that even a more critically self-reflective approach by victimizers fails to resolve.

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Section: The Irish Republican Frameworkmentioning

confidence: 99%

Victims Who Have Done Nothing or Victims Who Have Done Nothing Wrong: Contesting Blame and ‘Innocent Victim’ Status in Transitioning Societies

Hearty

2019

The British Journal of Criminology

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“…For example, the decision to limit the mandate of the South African Truth Commission to ‘gross human rights violations’ (such as torture and extra‐judicial killings) and thus largely ignore the more structural abuses of the apartheid system and those who have benefited from it (even without direct involvement in violence), was justified as contributing to reconciliation, even though it attracted critique as disregarding many of apartheid victims (Mamdani , Gready ). Similar social control choices – for example, whether to classify as human rights violations actions by rebel groups as well as by repressive governments (Dudai and McEvoy ), or whether to include in truth commissions’ mandates economic crimes and corruption (Carranza ) – likewise control and shape the way past events are described and understood in transitional societies.…”

Section: Truth Memory and Retroactive Social Controlmentioning

confidence: 99%

Transitional justice as social control: political transitions, human rights norms and the reclassification of the past

Dudai

2017

British Journal of Sociology

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This article offers an interpretation of transitional justice policies - the efforts of post-conflict and post-dictatorship societies to address the legacy of past abuses - as a form of social control. While transitional justice is commonly conceptualized as responding to a core problem of impunity, this article argues that such formulation is too narrow and leads to lack of coherence in the analysis of the diverse array of transitional mechanisms, which include among others trials, truth commissions, reparations for victims and apologies. Building on the work of Stanley Cohen, the article contends that the core transitional problem is the denial of human rights violations, and consequently that the common purpose of all transitional justice mechanisms is to reclassify the past: redefining as deviant some acts and individuals which prior to the transition were considered 'normal'. The article identifies and analyses three themes in the application of a social control framework to transitional justice: (1) truth, memory and retroactive social control, pertains to the way truth-seeking transitional justice mechanisms reclassify past events by engaging in social control of and through memory; (2) censure, celebration and transitional social control refers to the reclassification of categories of individuals through expressions of both social disapproval and praise; and (3) civil society and social control from below concerns the role of social movements, organizations and groups as informal agents of social control during transitions. The concluding section recaps and briefly explores the concept of 'good moral panic' in the context of political transitions. While the concept of social control tends to have negative connotations for critical sociologists, this work suggests that efforts to categorize, punish and disapprove certain behaviours as deviant may not only be viewed as supporting a conservative status-quo, but also as promoting fledging human rights norms.

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“…Doing so allows leaders to reap the benefits of repression while absolving them of direct responsibility. See Carey, Mitchell, and Lowe 2013;Dudai and McEvoy 2012;and Mitchell 2004. 78. Lutz Analyzing two sets of rights allows us to consider whether the moderating effect of state capacities on treaty effectiveness is further conditioned by differences in rights outcomes.…”

Section: Territorial Reach and The Protection Of Human Rightsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Doing so allows leaders to reap the benefits of repression while absolving them of direct responsibility. See Carey, Mitchell, and Lowe 2013; Dudai and McEvoy 2012; and Mitchell 2004.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%