Event Date: May 2, 2024 - 2:30pm to 4:00pm
Location: FSS 5028, 120 University Private, University of Ottawa
Presented by CIPS and the Graduate School of Public and International Affairs
In the aftermath of mass atrocities, communities grapple with the complex challenge of healing and seeking justice. In societies that try to rebuild and move on from a violent history marked by serious human rights violations – whether committed in contexts of repression, armed conflict or otherwise – important questions arise around how to acknowledge violations, satisfy demands for justice, prevent recurrence, restore the social fabric of communities, and build sustainable peace. Transitional justice is the discipline that seeks to unpack what it takes for societies to deal with such challenging legacies and develops various instruments to do so. According to the United Nations, transitional justice comprises “the full range of processes and mechanisms associated with a society’s attempt to come to terms with a legacy of large-scale past violations and abuses to ensure accountability, serve justice, and achieve reconciliation”. It aims at providing recognition to victims of past abuse as rights holders, enhancing trust between individuals in society and trust of individuals in State institutions, and reinforcing respect for human rights and promoting the rule of law. Transitional justice thus seeks to contribute to reconciliation and the prevention of new violations. Professors Sikkink, Dancy and Vinck and Post-doctoral Fellow Thoms are members of the Transitional Justice Evaluation Team (TJET), which runs the Transitional Justice Program at the Harvard Kennedy School’s Carr Center for Human Rights. The Program is funded by a grant from Global Affairs Canada. Professors Sikkink, Dancy and Vinck and Post-doctoral Fellow Thoms will discuss their work as part of the TJET as well as how transitional justice has evolved over the last two decades.
Speakers:
Kathryn Sikkink, Ryan Family Professor of Human Rights Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government, is an international relations scholar best known for her work on human rights, international norms, transnational advocacy networks and social movements, and transitional justice. Her books include: Activists beyond Borders: Advocacy Networks in International Politics (co-authored with Margaret Keck); The Justice Cascade: How Human Rights Prosecutions are Changing World Politics; Evidence for Hope: Making Human Rights Work in the 21st Century; The Hidden Face of Rights: Toward a Politics of Responsibility (Yale University Press, 2020); and most recently (co-authored with Richard Price) International Norms, Moral Psychology and Neuroscience (Cambridge University Press Elements Series, 2021). Sikkink has been a Fulbright Scholar in Argentina and a Guggenheim fellow. She holds a Ph.D. from Columbia University.
Patrick Vinck, Ph.D., is the Research Director at the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative and an Assistant Professor at Harvard Medical School and Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. His work focuses on resilience, peacebuilding, and social cohesion in conflict and disaster settings, also examining the ethical use of research and technology. His work includes socio-behavioral studies and engagement with survivors to inform policies and improve transitional justice, displacement response and other interventions. Additionally, Dr. Vinck co-founded the Data-Pop Alliance and developed KoBoToolbox, a vital data collection tool used in humanitarian crises.
Geoff Dancy, Ph.D., is an Associate Professor in the Department of Political Science at University of Toronto. A current director of the Transitional Justice Evaluation Tools (TJET) project, he has over 15 years of experience collecting and analyzing data on transitional justice. In addition to studying macro-level comparative evidence, he has conducted field research in Northern Ireland, Israel, Sri Lanka, Kenya, and Colombia. His work on human rights law and the impact of the anti-impunity institutions like the International Criminal Court, domestic human rights prosecutions and truth commissions has been published in a variety of outlets, including the American Political Science Review, American Journal of International Law, International Organization, and International Studies Quarterly.
Oskar Timo Thoms, Ph.D., is a Post-Doctoral Fellow at University of Toronto at Mississauga. Previously, he worked as a research and statistical consultant. In 2019-20 and 2022, he was an instructor at the Norman Paterson School of International Affairs, Carleton University, Ottawa. During 2018-19, he was the Simons Research Fellow in International Law and Human Security and an instructor at Simon Fraser University, Vancouver. He is co-author of the final report of the Lancet Commission on Peaceful Societies through Health and Gender Equality, and of articles in Comparative Political Studies, Journal of Peace Research, International Journal of Transitional Justice, Human Rights Quarterly, and Conflict & Health.
Moderator:
Roland Paris is a professor of international affairs and the director of the Graduate School of Public and International Affairs at the University of Ottawa, an associate fellow of Chatham House, and a former senior advisor on foreign policy to the prime minister of Canada.
No spam, only authentic content.