Never Again: Questioning the Yugoslav and Rwanda Tribunals

Fifty years after Nuremberg, the international community has again decided to experiment with international war crimes tribunals. The stated purpose for the establishment of both the Yugoslav and Rwanda Tribunals by the United Nations are to “put an end” to serious crimes such as genocide and to “take effective measures to bring to justice the persons who are responsible for them.” This piece argues that both assumptions are unrealistic and that such tribunals will have little or no effect on human rights violations of such enormous barbarity. In addition, this piece questions the motivations behind the formulation of the tribunals and posits that the tribunals served either to deflect responsibility or to assuage the consciences of states which were unwilling to take political and military measures to prevent or stop the Yugoslav and Rwandan genocides. The tribunals are disarticulated, if not entirely irrelevant, to the political, reconstructionist, and “peace” and “normalization” processes underway in Rwanda and the republics of the former Yugoslavia. The tribunals now orbit in space, suspended from political reality and removed from both the individual and national psyches of the victims as well as the victors in those conflicts. The failure of both tribunals will make the establishment of a permanent international criminal tribunal that much more difficult

Human Rights International NGOs: A Critical Evaluation

Published as Chapter 7 in NGOs and Human Rights: Promise and Performance, Claude E. Welch, Jr., ed. The Human rights movement can be seen in a variety of guises. It can be seen as a movement for international justice or as a cultural project for “civilizing savage” cultures. In this chapter, I discuss a part of that movement as a crusade for a political project. International nongovernmental human rights organizations (INGOs), the small and elite collection of human rights groups based in the most powerful cultural and political capitals of the West, have arguably been the most influential component of the human rights movement. They have led the human rights movement, as they have sought to enforce the application of human rights norms internationally, particularly toward repressive states in the South in areas formerly colonized by the West. This chapter calls INGOs conventional doctrinalists because they are marked by a heavy and almost exclusive reliance on positive law in treaties and other sources of international law. Only after conceding that INGOs indeed have a specific political agenda can discussions be had about the wisdom, problems, and implications for the advocacy of such values. And only then can conversations about the post liberal society start in earnest.https://digitalcommons.law.buffalo.edu/book_sections/1202/thumbnail.jp

Human Rights NGOS in East Africa: Defining the Challenges

Published as Chapter 1 in Human Rights NGOS in East Africa: Political and Normative Tensions, Makau Mutua, ed.https://digitalcommons.law.buffalo.edu/book_sections/1324/thumbnail.jp

The Ideology of Human Rights

This piece argues that although human rights is an ideology although it presents itself as non-ideological, non-partisan, and universal. It contends that the human rights corpus, taken as a whole, as a document of ideals and values, particularly the positive law of human rights, requires the construction of states to reflect the structures and values of governance that derive from Western liberalism, especially the contemporary variations of liberal democracy practiced in Western democracies. Viewed from this perspective, the human rights regime has serious and dramatic implications for questions of cultural diversity, the sovereignty of states, and the universality of human rights

Reparations for Slavery: A Productive Strategy?

Published as Chapter 1 in Time for Reparations: A Global Perspective, Jacqueline Bhabha, Margareta Matache & Caroline Elkins, eds.https://digitalcommons.law.buffalo.edu/book_sections/1455/thumbnail.jp

What Is the Future of Transitional Justice?

This piece explores and critiques the project of transitional justice. It has been more than a quarter of a century since transitional justice burst onto the global stage. Over the years it has come to be billed as a panacea for addressing deeply embedded social and political dysfunction after periods of mass repression and violence. Many theorists and policy makers have argued that it is a key bridge to sustainable peace, democracy and human rights. But the historical record is not clear about a direct causal relationship between transitional justice mechanisms and specific outcomes in post-conflict societies. In some cases, truth commissions, criminal prosecutions and other transitional justice interventions appear to have given society a chance at a new and hopeful beginning. In others, conflicts have either re-emerged or been exacerbated. Which begs the question, is transitional justice the appropriate vehicle for achieving these goals? If it does not always lead to positive outcomes, why not? Are there conceptual problems and theoretical deficiencies in how we make sense of justice and transitions that account for the failures? Or is it the translation of transitional justice norms into practice that is wanting? The big question is this: Does transitional justice have a future, given its mixed record? This piece focuses on the meaning of the concept, how its application has evolved and whether it is sustainable as theory and praxis. How defined is the concept of transitional justice? What exactly does it entail and what does it seek to achieve? Are political democracy, the rule of law and human rights – the pivots of liberalism – the desired end results implicit in transitional justice approaches? If so, why should liberalism be the germ of the new post-conflict society? If transitional justice promotes liberalism, who gains and who loses if it succeeds? How would liberalism address deeply rooted cultural, colonial and ethnic rivalries and inequities? Would structures of deep inequity be vanquished by these norms? Or does this conception of transitional justice exacerbate conflicts as it seeks to transform societies? Who pays for transformation? What about market forces and norms – do they fuel or contain conflict? If existing transitional justice concepts are inadequate to recover, or reclaim, societies sickened by violence and repression, are there alternatives? If so, how do those alternatives compare with present conceptualizations of transitional justice? Should the term ‘transitional justice’ itself be abandoned

An Apology for a Pathological Brute (reviewing Tim Jeal, Stanley: The Impossible Life of Africa\u27s Greatest Explorer (2007))

This is a review of Tom Jeal’s Stanley: the Impossible Life of Africa’s Greatest Explorer. Although perhaps the most carefully researched of the many books of Stanley, the book suffers from its zealous attempt to absolve Stanley of his inhumanity in spite of the most extensive historical evidence of the abominations that he committed against Africans. Instead, Jeal sets out to humanize a historical monster who paved the way for many pogroms committed by the colonial hegemons in Africa. Even deep flaws of character, including self-denial, that were so evident in Stanley are either explained away or excused. The book is a truly incredible attempt to valorize a person many Africans would rather forget

New Challenges to Southern Africa: From Regional Conflict to Internal Reconstruction

With the possible exception of the Horn of Africa, arguably no other African region has been subject to multiple traumas such as those endured by Southern Africa. From the brutal Portuguese colonization to the vicious civil wars in Angola and Mozambique, not to mention the ravages of apartheid in South Africa and Namibia, the last four hundred years have seen sheer brutality of man over fellow man. Since 1990, however, there has been a steady reversal of the conditions that have historically caused violence in the region. In this article, the author examines this legacy and the struggle to construct politically viable states from a human rights dimension. Although countries in the region are states juridically, they lack the other essential ingredients of stable statehood, such as nationally committed political classes, a loyal citizenry with a sense of civic duty, and a strong base for economic development. Unless emergent democracies develop such variables, the experiment with open and free societies may fail. Human rights can only be secured when these fundamental questions on the viability of the state are successfully addressed