Transitional Justice In The Middle East And North Africa

The chapters in this volume, written largely by experts in the field, draw upon pre- and post-Arab Spring use of transitional justice mechanisms in a range of countries, including Algeria, Egypt, Tunisia, Yemen, Libya, Morocco, and Bahrain

This book examines the changing dynamics of stabilisation efforts in the Middle East and North Africa. Written by recognised scholars and practitioners in the field, this volume provides a rich overview of the broader spectrum of stabilisation. The topics range from a comprehensive set of lessons learned in Afghanistan and Iraq to transitional justice and reconciliation efforts in Tunisia and international attempts to protect the region’s cultural heritage. Ultimately, this edited collection presents a comprehensive look at the attempts to increase stability in the MENA region.

This groundbreaking volume explores how post-Arab Spring societies have experienced transitional justice - or not, as the case may be

This edited volume is an open access title and assembles both the historical consciousness and transformation of the MENA region in various disciplinary and topical facets. At the same time, it aims to go beyond the MENA region, contributing to critical debates on area studies while pointing out transregional and cultural references in a broad and comparative manner.

This book presents a varied and critical picture of how the Arab Spring demands a re-examination and re-conceptualization of issues of transitional justice. It demonstrates how unique features of this wave of revolutions and popular protests that have swept the Arab world since December 2010 give rise to distinctive concerns and problems relative to transitional justice. The contributors explore how these issues in turn add fresh perspective and nuance to the field more generally. In so doing, it explores fundamental questions of social justice, reconstruction and healing in the context of the Arab Spring. Including the perspectives of academics and practitioners, Transitional Justice and the Arab Spring will be of considerable interest to those working on the politics of the Middle East, normative political theory, transitional justice, international law, international relations and human rights.

In the last five to ten years, pressure for political liberalisation, and the growth of civil society and independent media, inside Arab countries have prompted the debate about violent events in the postcolonial period. This book features studies of six Arab countries in which legacies of political violence have been challenged through various initiatives to promote "truth-telling" and transitional justice. The analysis departs from a liberal, teleological understanding of truth and reconciliation as a linear process from trauma through memory to national healing. Instead, the articles highlight how the interplay between state-orchestrated initiatives (such as Truth and Reconciliation committees and ministerial committees); civil society actors (including former political prisoners, investigative journalists and NGOs); and external actors (such as transnational NGOs, state sponsored dialogue initiatives, the UN and the EU) is creating a new political field. The book examines the extent to which this field challenges the Arab nation-state’s monopoly on history and violence, and asks whether public narratives of violence, memory and justice consolidate or challenge political legitimacy of current regimes. This book was published as a special issue of Mediterranean Politics.

Recent events such as ‘Iran’s Green Revolution’ and the ‘Arab Uprisings’ have exploded notions that human rights are irrelevant to Middle Eastern and North African politics. Increasingly seen as a global concern, human rights are at the fulcrum of the region’s on-the-ground politics, transnational intellectual debates, and global political intersections. The Routledge Handbook on Human Rights and the Middle East and North Africa: emphasises the need to consider human rights in all their dimensions, rather than solely focusing on the political dimension, in order to understand the structural reasons behind the persistence of human rights violations; explores the various frameworks in which to consider human rights—conceptual, political and transnational/international; discusses issue areas subject to particularly intense debate—gender, religion, sexuality, transitions and accountability; contains contributions from perspectives that span from global theory to grassroots reflections, emphasising the need for academic work on human rights to seriously engage with the thoughts and practices of those working on the ground. A multidisciplinary approach from scholars with a wide range of expertise allows the book to capture the complex dynamics by which human rights have had, or could have, an impact on Middle Eastern and North African politics. This book will therefore be a key resource for students and scholars of Middle Eastern and North African politics and society, as well as anyone with a concern for Human Rights across the globe.