Us Foreign Policy On Transitional Justice

Since the end of the Cold War, the United States has been a key driver of transitional justice. It has provided crucial political backing, as well as technical and financial assistance for trials, truth commissions, and other measures aimed at helping societies address serious human rights violations. Surprisingly, however, scholars have not analyzed closely the role of the US in transitional justice. This book offers the first systematic and cross-cutting account of US foreign policy on transitional justice. It explores the development of US foreign policy on the field from World War I to the present, and provides an in-depth examination of US involvement in measures in Cambodia, Liberia, and Colombia. Annie Bird supports her findings with nearly 200 interviews with key US and foreign government officials, staff of transitional justice measures, and country experts. By "opening the black box" of US foreign policy, the book shows how the diverse and evolving interests of presidential administrations, Congress, the State Department, and other agencies play a major role in shaping US involvement in transitional justice. The book argues that, despite multiple influences, US foreign policy on transitional justice is characterized by a distinctive approach that is symbolic, retributive, and strategic. As the book concludes, this approach has influenced the field as a whole, including the establishment, design, and implementation of transitional justice measures.

In United States Law and Policy on Transitional Justice: Principles, Politics, and Pragmatics, Zachary D. Kaufman explores the U.S. government's support for, or opposition to, certain transitional justice institutions. By first presenting an overview of possible responses to atrocities (such as war crimes tribunals) and then analyzing six historical case studies, Kaufman evaluates why and how the United States has pursued particular transitional justice options since World War II. This book challenges the "legalist" paradigm, which postulates that liberal states pursue war crimes tribunals because their decision-makers hold a principled commitment to the rule of law. Kaufman develops an alternative theory-"prudentialism"-which contends that any state (liberal or illiberal) may support bona fide war crimes tribunals. More generally, prudentialism proposes that states pursue transitional justice options, not out of strict adherence to certain principles, but as a result of a case-specific balancing of politics, pragmatics, and normative beliefs. Kaufman tests these two competing theories through the U.S. experience in six contexts: Germany and Japan after World War II, the 1988 bombing of Pan Am flight 103, the 1990-1991 Iraqi offenses against Kuwaitis, the atrocities in the former Yugoslavia in the 1990s, and the 1994 Rwandan genocide. Kaufman demonstrates that political and pragmatic factors featured as or more prominently in U.S. transitional justice policy than did U.S. government officials' normative beliefs. Kaufman thus concludes that, at least for the United States, prudentialism is superior to legalism as an explanatory theory in transitional justice policymaking.

"[This book] explores the U.S. government's support for, or opposition to, certain transitional justice institutions. By first presenting an overview of possible responses to atrocities (such as war crimes tribunals) and then analyzing six historical case studies, Kaufman evaluates why and how the United States has pursued particular transitional justice options since World War II. This book challenges the "legalist" paradigm, which postulates that liberal states pursue war crimes tribunals because their decision-makers hold a principled commitment to the rule of law. Kaufman develops an alternative theory - "prudentialism"--Which contends that any state (liberal or illiberal) may support bona fide war crimes tribunals. More generally, prudentialism proposes that states pursue transitional justice options, not out of strict adherence to certain principles, but as a result of a case-specific balancing of politics, pragmatics, and normative beliefs. Kaufman tests these two competing theories through the U.S. experience in six contexts: Germany and Japan after World War II, the 1988 bombing of Pan Am flight 103, the 1990-1991 Iraqi offenses against Kuwaitis, the atrocities in the former Yugoslavia in the 1990s, and the 1994 Rwandan genocide. Kaufman demonstrates that political and pragmatic factors featured as or more prominently in U.S. transitional justice policy than did U.S. government officials' normative beliefs. Kaufman thus concludes that, at least for the United States, prudentialism is superior to legalism as an explanatory theory in transitional justice policymaking."--Jacket.

Since the end of the Cold War, the United States has been a key driver of transitional justice. It has provided crucial political backing, as well as technical and financial assistance for trials, truth commissions, and other measures aimed at helping societies address serious human rights violations. Surprisingly, however, scholars have not analyzed closely the role of the US in transitional justice. This book offers the first systematic and cross-cutting account of US foreign policy on transitional justice. It explores the development of US foreign policy on the field from World War I to the present, and provides an in-depth examination of US involvement in measures in Cambodia, Liberia, and Colombia. Annie Bird supports her findings with nearly 200 interviews with key US and foreign government officials, staff of transitional justice measures, and country experts. By "opening the black box" of US foreign policy, the book shows how the diverse and evolving interests of presidential administrations, Congress, the State Department, and other agencies play a major role in shaping US involvement in transitional justice. The book argues that, despite multiple influences, US foreign policy on transitional justice is characterized by a distinctive approach that is symbolic, retributive, and strategic. As the book concludes, this approach has influenced the field as a whole, including the establishment, design, and implementation of transitional justice measures.

Acts of contrition and transitional justice—admission of wrong, apology, and reparations—have become fashionable in the discourse of international affairs. Using a case-study approach that inspires student discussion of concrete examples, this text addresses important questions about the politics of apology in relation to some of the most controversial cases of US foreign policy over the past fifty years: Vietnam, Nicaragua, and the most recent war in Iraq. Loramy Gerstbauer offers an original, transdisciplinary, and accessible argument for the practical value of contrition, forgiveness, and reconciliation in international relations while examining why the United States has been a less than contrite nation and offering a prescription for how to change this state of affairs.

Since the 1980s, transitional justice mechanisms have been increasingly applied to account for mass atrocities and grave human rights violations throughout the world. Over time, post-conflict justice practices have expanded across continents and state borders and have fueled the creation of new ideas that go beyond traditional notions of amnesty, retribution, and reconciliation. Gathering work from contributors in international law, political science, sociology, and history, New Critical Spaces in Transitional Justice addresses issues of space and time in transitional justice studies. It explains new trends in responses to post-conflict and post-authoritarian nations and offers original empirical research to help define the field for the future.

On November 3, 1979, in the Morningside neighborhood of Greensboro, North Carolina, a caravan of Ku Klux Klan and Nazi Party members arrived on the scene of an anti-Klan protest. After a scuffle, some of the Klan and Nazis opened fire on the mostly unarmed, racially mixed gathering of political activists, labor organizers, and children. While news cameras filmed, five protesters were killed and ten were wounded. Police officers were notably absent at the time of the attack. State and federal criminal trials resulted in acquittals of the shooters by all-white juries. The City of Greensboro consistently denied any responsibility for the events. In 2001, Greensboro took its first groundbreaking steps toward confronting the past through an independent Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Inspired by South Africa's efforts to tackle injustice and seek reconciliation on a larger scale, Greensboro explicitly and controversially connected its experience to other contexts of injustice and launched a novel undertaking for a U.S. community. Learning from Greensboro provides an insider's look at the truth and reconciliation process, including how it worked, the challenges it faced, and the local context in which it existed. The book offers valuable practical insights into the process of truth-telling and gives testimony to the possibility that denial, indifference, and hidden histories can be made to yield to a deeper and lasting justice.

Annotation Analyzes the impact of globalization on U.S.-Latin American relations.