Alter-transitional justice; transforming unjust relations with the more-than-human

Drawing on the emerging field of multispecies justice, this article seeks to understand how the idea of transitional justice, capaciously understood, might be put to work to transform unjust relations between humans and the more-than-human. Reflecting on concerns in the literatures on animals and the environment concerning the cogency of addressing past wrongs against the more-than-human by using a justice framework, the article sets out a foundational agenda for transitional justice and a conceptual framework responsive to the ontological diversity of beings and communities other than humans. Focusing on soil specifically, the article explores the problem of developing transitional justice approaches for transforming relations that involve systemic violence where such violence is not acknowledged because the harmed being – soil – is not recognized as the type of community to which justice might be owed. To illustrate proto-transitional justice, the article considers both the work of regenerative farmers and emergent collaborations between farmers and visual artists to explore how engagements with the arts of relating to the more-than-human might move the as yet private transformations of relations with soil into a more public, albeit incipient, process of justice.

Judging the past: Memory, others, and intergenerational responsibility among the Japanese youth

The past continuously haunts Japan. It has been more than 75 years since the end of the last war and Japan has never fully reconciled with its Asian neighbors, especially China and South Korea, over the question of how to commemorate Japan’s past wrongs and atone for the physical as well as the psychological wounds it caused in Asia. In this context, also problematized is the question of intergenerational responsibility. Can the members of current generations feel responsibility and obligation to make restitution for wrongs perpetrated before they were born? If so, how? If not, why not? As it is reported that the Japanese public’s sense of affinity toward China and South Korea greatly deteriorated in the 2010s due to a series of memory disputes, it seems imperative to delve into the Japanese youth’s sense of the past. In this exploratory study, by following Barry Schwartz and his colleagues’ Judging the Past framework, we conducted college student surveys (N = 320) in 2017/2018 and interviews (N = 31) in 2017 and explored the cognitive connection between the Japanese youth’s sense of nation and their perceptions of moral responsibility for Japan’s militaristic past.

The Expressive Value of Prosecuting Aged Defendants: A Rebuke of Ageism

A common normative justification for criminal trials is their expressive value. The prosecution of aged defendants, especially those with deteriorating health, seemingly presents new expressive challenges, where the value of judging and punishing past wrongs seems to conflict with sympathies for the elderly, the seeming futility of prosecuting individuals who are unlikely to serve much of a sentence if convicted, and the seeming cruelty of putting the frail/ill through lengthy and taxing trials. Drawing from philosophical literature on respect for persons and the morality of aged-based differential treatment, this paper argues that deciding not to prosecute would be a communicative disservice to the old—defendants, living victims and those left behind, and other aged individuals within a society—by treating the aged as less agentic or as if their past lives and past actions, admirable or detestable, should no longer be associated with them, nor praised or condemned.

Safety, Collaboration, and Empowerment

In order to undertake liberatory memory work, engage effectively with communities and individuals, and centre people rather than records in their work, archival organizations must be aware of trauma and its effects. This article introduces the concept of trauma-informed practice to archives and other memory organizations. Trauma-informed practice is a strengths-based approach for organizations that acknowledges the pervasiveness of trauma and the risk and potential for people to be retraumatized through engagement with organizations such as archives and seeks to minimize triggers and negative interactions. It provides a framework of safety and offers a model of collaboration and empowerment that recognizes and centres the expertise of the individuals and communities documented within the records held in archives. Traumainformed practice also provides a way for archivists to practically implement many of the ideas discussed in the literature, including liberatory memory work, radical empathy, and participatory co-design. This article proposes several areas where a trauma-informed approach may be useful in archives and may lead to trauma-informed archival practice that provides better outcomes for all: users, staff, and memory organizations in general. Applying trauma-informed archival practice is multidimensional. It requires the comprehensive review of archival practice, theory, and processes and the consideration of the specific needs of individual memory organizations and the people who interact with them. Each organization should implement trauma-informed practice in the way that will achieve outcomes appropriate for its own context. These out comes can include recognizing and acknowledging past wrongs, ensuring safety for archives users and staff, empowering communities documented in archives, and using archives for justice and healing.

The Case for Gay Reparations

This book makes the case for why the United States should embrace gay reparations, or policies intended to make amends for a history of discrimination, stigmatization, and violence against the LGBT community. It contends that gay reparations are a moral imperative for bringing dignity to those whose human rights have been violated because of their sexual orientation and/or gender identity, for closing painful histories of state-sponsored victimization of LGBT people, and for reminding future generations of past struggles for LGBT equality. To make its case, the book examines how other Western democracies notorious for their oppression of homosexuals have implemented gay reparations—specifically Spain, Britain, and Germany. Their collective experience shows that although there is no universal approach to gay reparations, it is never too late for countries to seek to right past wrongs.

Judging the Justice of the Colombian Final Agreement

This chapter studies the text of the Colombian peace agreement (also known as the Final Agreement), arguing that the justice component of this agreement depends on the extent to which the envisioned transitional process contributes to social transformation. Despite the fact that societies emerging from periods of conflict or repression characteristically try to address past wrongs using processes that are not criminal punishment, there is a deep disagreement as to whether true justice is achieved with alternative measures such as amnesty or a truth commission. To that extent, justice, in transitional circumstances, is not aimed at giving perpetrators what they deserve, but rather in transforming the political relationships among citizens and between citizens and officials, and in doing so in a just manner by treating victims and perpetrators fairly. The chapter then explains that the justice process outlined in the Final Agreement is comprehensive. By drawing on the cases of Northern Ireland and South Africa, it discusses the temporal dimension of transitional justice and the constitutional changes that occur in the pursuit of it.

HOW LONG DOES ECONOMIC INJUSTICE LAST?

This article assesses whether economic injustices that took place in the past still have significant implications for the material welfare of people many years later. That issue is central to the question of how fair is the distribution of wealth and income today. It is also relevant to issues of reparations for past wrongs. I find that in standard neoclassical models of economic growth the lingering effects of injustice from more than 70 years ago are generally small. But effects can last much longer once we allow for impacts of past injustices to be transmitted through human capital accumulation as well as physical capital.

Truth, Justice, and Commemoration Initiatives in Turkey

This chapter analyzes laws and policies that seek to reveal, publicize, and officially acknowledge facts about human rights violations, procure retributive justice through criminal trials, and attain restorative justice through compensation for victims in Turkey. In addition, it discusses efforts of victims’ groups, human rights associations, opposition political parties, and other concerned civil society groups to generate awareness around those violations. It addresses two main questions: Why has the Turkish state unveiled truth, justice, and commemoration initiatives, i.e., policies and gestures to acknowledge and redress past wrongs? Why have these efforts, mostly initiated in the 2000s and early 2010s, failed? The chapter argues that the combination of civil society activism, memory initiatives by opposition parties, especially the Kurdish political movement, diaspora pressures, and European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) rulings necessitated government efforts to address past wrongs. In some ways, the Justice and Development Party (Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi, AKP) government’s (2002–present) narrative of modern Turkish history facilitated these initiatives, as it sought to solidify its support among minority constituencies and liberal intellectuals by marketing itself as the voice of the “democratic majority” and as an agent of change in a country where the state routinely committed, denied, and justified human rights violations. Yet, the AKP government’s instrumentalism and selective reconstruction of the national past also explain why these truth, justice, and commemoration initiatives failed to satisfy the victims, the broader human rights community, and independent observers. In a political landscape marked by shifting opportunities, threats, and alliances, the AKP government found it politically convenient to sacrifice those initiatives after 2011. The consolidation of AKP rule and the accompanying institutional decline of democracy that started around the same time pushed them further into irrelevance.

Moving Forward: No Scientific Integrity without an Acknowledgment of Past Wrongs

Trust is essential for good patient care. Abuses in research and in medical care undermines trust in governmental medical care systems. Restoring trust involves acknowledging and correcting past harms to communities and individuals.

Tools to Promote Equity and Best Practices

This is the second volume of a two-volume special issue of the American Indian Culture and Research Journal dedicated to the indirect impact of COVID-19 on Indigenous Peoples. The first, 44.2, reports on COVID-19’s extensive impact on Indigenous Peoples and the resulting variety of responses at community and local levels. This second volume, 44.3, provides specific research and insights for improving reporting, identification, and prevention of COVID-19 cases and deaths. Several contributors to this issue respond to the urgent need to ensure, for small populations, and Indigenous Peoples in particular, that data collection provides detailed information on race and tribal nation identifiers. Like this lack of data disaggregation, data inaccuracy also impedes understanding of the impact of a pandemic. Other researchers find that a hallmark of this pandemic—the shift from in-person to virtual interactions in many aspects of life—has clarified that innovative telehealth and virtual methods already underway for Indigenous Peoples may represent the frontiers of better health care, access, and service. “Moving Forward: No Scientific Integrity without an Acknowledgment of Past Wrongs,” a commentary emphasizing the necessary actions the US government must take if progress is to be made, concludes this special issue.