Truth Commission Impact: An Assessment of How Commissions Influence Politics and Society (SWP 16)

This paper defines truth commission impact as the effect of truth commissions on government policy, judicial processes and social norms. It isolates impact from the causal effects of similar post-conflict institution-building and other transitional justice and conflict resolution measures. It examines ten causal mechanisms through which truth commissions are expected to influence politics and society. Immediate political impact through the implementation of recommendations and delayed political impact through civil society mobilization are the two explanations that draw strong empirical support. Some commissions contribute to human rights accountability (judicial impact), and some promote impunity through amnesty, although the magnitude of impact is small in each case. They also generate normative changes through the delegitimation of perpetrators, the reaction to delegitimation on the part of perpetrators and their allies, and commissions’ overall impact on social norms. Only one commission (in El Salvador) has successfully lobbied for vetting. Despite widely held claims that commissions present a trade-off between reconciliation and justice, there is no evidence that commissions forge reconciliation through consensus, or that they perpetuate impunity

What is AI Ethics? A Network Analysis of Scholarship

https://scholarworks.seattleu.edu/lightning-may2021/1000/thumbnail.jp

Situating Truth Commissions’ Historical Narratives in Context: Chile and Peru

Why do some truth commissions produce comprehensive historical narratives,while others limit themselves to writing short context chapters? Why do some narratives try to include as many perspectives as possible, while others seem content with a relatively narrow analysis? Why do some commissions avoid making judgment on politically sensitive issues, while others eagerly join historiographical controversies? What do the exclusions reveal about a particular truth commission’s understanding of truth, justice and reconciliation? These questions are explored through an analysis of the historical narratives of the Chilean and Peruvian truth commissions. The author compares and contrasts the historical narratives with respect to depth, breadth, narrative strategies, and exclusions and argues that the commission creation process simultaneously enables and constrains the commission through the mandate and the appointment of commissioners, which in turn shapes the forensic investigation and the historical explanation. The composition of the commissionis of special significance in making sense of the historical explanation, since thecommissioners’ professional background, ideology, values and experiences have direct influence on the content and exclusions of the narrative

Judges Discover Politics: Justice, Realpolitik, and Judges\u27 Activism in Contemporary Turkey (SWP 33)

The case of Turkey presents unique opportunities to expand the theoretical horizons of research on the “legal complex”. This paper explores factors behind the growth of off-the-bench activism by judges and prosecutors between 1980 and 2010 and identifies three stages: the collusion between the military and high courts from the 1980 coup until 2005; the increasing politicization and polarization of the legal complex in 2005–2010; and the restructuring of the judiciary in the wake of the 2010 constitutional referendum. Attention is paid to how individual professionals and judicial organizations shape political and judicial processes, but also to the effects of the government’s quest to eliminate political rivals and rearrange the balance of power within the governing coalition

The promises and challenges of addressing artificial intelligence with human rights

This paper examines the potential promises and limitations of the human rights framework in the age of AI. It addresses the question: what, if anything, makes human rights well suited to face the challenges arising from new and emerging technologies like AI? It argues that the historical evolution of human rights as a series of legal norms and concrete practices has made it well placed to address AI-related challenges. The human rights framework should be understood comprehensively as a combination of legal remedies, moral justification, and political analysis that inform one another. Over time, the framework has evolved in ways that accommodate the balancing of contending rights claims, using multiple ex ante and ex post facto mechanisms, involving government and/or business actors, and in situations of diffuse responsibility that may or may not result from malicious intent. However, the widespread adoption of AI technologies pushes the moral, sociological, and political boundaries of the human rights framework in other ways. AI reproduces long-term, structural problems going beyond issue-by-issue regulation, is embedded within economic structures that produce cumulative negative effects, and introduces additional challenges that require a discussion about the relationship between human rights and science & technology. Some of the reasons for why AI produces problematic outcomes are deep rooted in technical intricacies that human rights practitioners should be more willing than before to get involved in