Collective Memory of Past Human Rights Abuses-South Korea

The discourse on transitional justice by academics and practitioners center upon a common understanding of the importance of truth-seeking or truth-telling, reparations, prosecutions, and other institutional reforms in addressing a state’s past abuses. Policies of memorialization complement these processes of transitional justice, with the production of collective memory and history that helps transitioning states from authoritarian pasts toward reconciliation. This study builds on the growing interest in memory initiatives by bringing to light the integral and visible role memory practices have played in truth-seeking and reparations processes. Particularly, it focuses on the building of collective memory integrated in truth commission work and how this memory is channeled through reparations policies. Drawing from observations of a state that is relatively a latecomer to transitional justice processes than the Southern Cone, the article examines South Korea’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission (2005) and the creation of collective memory through symbolic reparations of public memorialization — namely the national history textbook. In doing so, it speaks to scholarship that regards truth-seeking as a public ritual. Through the analysis, the article first discounts the criticism that memory initiatives are invisible in transitional justice by stressing the importance of collective memory construction in the publication of national history textbooks in South Korea. Second, the analysis of the collective memory presented within the textbook argues for the need to reevaluate the politics behind the creation of memory even in a state that transitioned to a democracy, instituted over ten truth commissions, and prosecuted former heads of state. Lastly, within the theoretical discussions of international norms leading to changes in state behavior, it questions whether memory initiatives along with other transitional justice norms in fact could influence states to consider what is appropriate prior to that of utility calculations and political interests

Making the Case for Genocide, the Forced Sterilization of Indigenous Peoples of Peru

Peru’s national health program Programa de Salud Reproductiva y Planificación Familiar (PSRPF) aimed to uphold women’s reproductive rights and address the scarcity in maternity related services. Despite these objectives, during PSRPF’s implementation the respect for women’s rights were undermined with the forced sterilization of women predominantly of indigenous, poor, and rural backgrounds. This study considers the forced sterilization of indigenous women as a genocide. Making the case for genocide has not been done previously with this particular case. Using the normative markers of the Genocide Convention, this study categorically sets forced sterilization victims from the state-led-policy as victims of genocide, considering the effects the health malpractice had on victims’ reproductive rights and the prevention of births of future indigenous populations. In doing so, this study proves the genocidal intent from the state to destroy in whole or in part, an ethnic minority group