Amnesty

Drawing on crystallizing trends in State's practice in respect of amnesty, this book provides a comprehensive legal framework within which grants of amnesty can be reconciled with the duty to prosecute core crimes under international law.

South Africa's amnesty was a unique experiment. A path that lay 'between a Nuremberg option and total amnesia, ' the amnesty process was designed in the heat of a remarkable and complex transition to constitutional democracy

Traces the history of Amnesty International from its beginnings in 1961, describing the difficulties and disappointments, how the organization works, and its special campaigns. Includes case studies focusing on the Soviet Union, China, Africa, Brazil and South America and first hand information on current activities in Guatemala, El Salvador and Nicaragua. The book is illustrated by photographs from Amnesty's archives

Amnesty laws are political tools used since ancient times by states wishing to quell dissent, introduce reforms, or achieve peaceful relationships with their enemies. In recent years, they have become contentious due to a perception that they violate international law, particularly the rights of victims, and contribute to further violence. This view is disputed by political negotiators who often argue that amnesty is a necessary price to pay in order to achieve a stable, peaceful, and equitable system of government. This book aims to investigate whether an amnesty necessarily entails a violation of a state's international obligations, or whether an amnesty, accompanied by alternative justice mechanisms, can in fact contribute positively to both peace and justice. This study began by constructing an extensive Amnesty Law Database that contains information on 506 amnesty processes in 130 countries introduced since the Second World War. The database and chapter structure were designed to correspond with the key aspects of an amnesty: why it was introduced, who benefited from its protection, which crimes it covered, and whether it was conditional. In assessing conditional amnesties, related transitional justice processes such as selective prosecutions, truth commissions, community-based justice mechanisms, lustration, and reparations programmes were considered. Subsequently, the jurisprudence relating to amnesty from national courts, international tribunals, and courts in third states was addressed. The information gathered revealed considerable disparity in state practice relating to amnesties, with some aiming to provide victims with a remedy, and others seeking to create complete impunity for perpetrators. To date, few legal trends relating to amnesty laws are emerging, although it appears that amnesties offering blanket, unconditional immunity for state agents have declined. Overall, amnesties have increased in popularity since the 1990s and consequently, rather than trying to dissuade states from using this tool of transitional justice, this book argues that international actors should instead work to limit the more negative forms of amnesty by encouraging states to make them conditional and to introduce complementary programmes to repair the harm and prevent a repetition of the crimes. David Dyzenhaus "This is one of the best accounts in the truth and reconciliation literature I've read and certainly the best piece of work on amnesty I've seen." Diane Orentlicher "Ms Mallinder's ambitious project provides the kind of empirical treatment that those of us who have worked on the issue of amnesties in international law have long awaited. I have no doubt that her book will be a much-valued and widely-cited resource."

Amnesty International's (AI) focus on civil and political rights has marked their work with a gender bias from the outset. In the first comprehensive look at AI's work on women's rights, Miriam Ganzfried illustrates the development of their activities regarding women's rights issues over twenty years. Through interviews with staff members and activists and unprecedented access to archive material from the Swiss and the German AI sections, she shows how women activists strategized to make AI increase its work on women's rights. Additionally, the book demonstrates that, despite the leadership's commitment to the Stop Violence Against Women campaign, internal resistance hampered the integration of women's rights into the organization's overall work.