Truth Recovery In Northern Ireland

Northern Ireland has entered what is arguably the key phase in its troubled political history -- truth recovery and dealing with the legacy of the past -- yet the void in knowledge and the lack of academic literature with regard to victims’ rights is particularly striking. This book analyzes truth recovery as a fundamental aspect of the transition from political violence to peace, democracy and stability in post-conflict Northern Ireland. Kirk Simpson argues that it is essential for any process of truth recovery in Northern Ireland to provide the victims of political violence with the opportunity to express and articulate their narratives of suffering within the context of public dialogic processes. He outlines a unique and original model: that victims of political violence should be enabled to engage in meaningful truth recovery through a Habermasian process of public democratic deliberation and communication involving direct dialogue with the perpetrators of such violence. This process of ‘communicative justice’ is framed within Habermas’ theory of communicative action and can help to ensure that legitimate truth recovery publicly acknowledges the trauma of victims and subjects perpetrator narratives of political violence to critical scrutiny and rational deconstruction. Crucially, the book aims to contribute to the empowerment of victims in Northern Ireland by stimulating constructive discussion and awareness of hitherto silenced narratives of the conflict. This difficult and unsettling interrogation and interpretation of the conflict from a comparatively ‘unknown perspective’ is central to the prospects for critically examining and mastering the past in Northern Ireland.

Truth, Denial and Transition: Northern Ireland and the Contested Past makes a unique and timely contribution to the transitional justice field. In contrast to the focus on truth and those societies where truth recovery has been central to dealing with the aftermath of human rights violations, comparatively little scholarly attention has been paid to those jurisdictions whose transition from violent conflict has been marked by the absence or rejection of a formal truth process. This book draws upon the case study of Northern Ireland, where, despite a lengthy debate, the question of establishing a formal truth recovery process remains hotly contested. The strongest and most vocal opposition has been from unionist political elites, loyalist ex-combatants and members of the security forces. Based on empirical research, their opposition is unpicked and interrogated at length throughout this book. Critically exploring notions of national imagination and blamelessness, the politics of victimhood and the tension between traditions of sacrifice and the fear of betrayal, this book is the first substantive effort to concentrate on the opponents of truth recovery rather than its advocates. This book will interest those studying truth processes and transitional justice in the fields of Law, Politics, and Criminology.

Focuses on the conditions which predispose or prevent embarkation on a truth recovery process and the rationale for that process, arguing that there is no magic moment ofreadiness for truth recovery, but that the conditions are constructed rather than spontaneously occurring.

This book considers the problem of managing the unfinished business of a violent past in societies moving out of political violence. Truth Commissions are increasingly used to unearth the acts committed by the various protagonists and to acknowledge the suffering of their victims. This book uniquely focuses on the conditions which predispose or p

This book explores the relationship the politics of truth recovery and its assumed links to reconciliation in the Northern Ireland Good Friday Agreement, looking at issues of transitional justice and the ownership and forms of truth recovery.

The SAGE Handbook of Nations and Nationalism gives readers a critical survey of the latest theories and debates. Its three sections guide the reader through the theoretical approaches to this field of study, its major themes - from modernity to memory, migration and genocide - and the diversity of nationalisms found around the globe.

This book employs a transitional justice lens to address the ‘disappearances’ that occurred during the Northern Ireland conflict – or ‘Troubles’ – and the post-conflict response to these ‘disappearances.’ Despite an extensive literature around ‘dealing with the past’ in Northern Ireland, as well as a substantial body of scholarship on ‘disappearances’ in other national contexts, there has been little scholarly scrutiny of ‘disappearances’ in post-conflict Northern Ireland. Although the Good Friday Agreement brought relative peace to Northern Ireland, no provision was made for the establishment of some form of overarching truth and reconciliation commission aimed at comprehensively addressing the legacy of violence. Nevertheless, a mechanism to recover the remains of the ‘disappeared’ – the Independent Commission for the Location of Victims’ Remains (ICLVR) – was established, and has in fact proven to be quite effective. As a result, the reactions of key constituencies to the ‘disappearances’ can be used as a prism through which to comprehensively explore issues of relevance to transitional justice scholars and practitioners. Pursuing an interdisciplinary approach, and based on extensive empirical research, this book provides a multifaceted exploration of the responses of these constituencies to the practice of ‘disappearing.’ It engages with transitional justice themes including silence, memory, truth, acknowledgement, and apology. Key issues examined include the mobilisation efforts of families of the ‘disappeared,’ efforts by a (former) non-state armed group to address its legacy of violence, the utility of a limited immunity mechanism to incentivise information provision, and the interplay between silence and memory in the shaping of a collective, societal understanding of the ‘disappeared.’