[Peace-discuss] Transnational Seminar with Jonathan Allen, Fri 5 Nov, 4 pm

[Lisa Chason]

Transnational Seminars

 

Sociology - Geography - Urban and regional Planning - Global Studies

Friday 5 November 2004, 4 pm

 

  

 


Who

Jonathan Allen, Political Science, UIUC

 


What

Memory and Politics: Three Theories of Justice in Regime Transitions 

 


When 

Friday 5 November, 4 pm


Where

Lincoln Hall, Room 336


Discussant  

Belden Fields, Emeritus Professor Political Science UIUC

 

 

Note: Seminar time change from 3 pm to 4 pm (from now on)

 

ABSTRACT

This paper claims that there is a new (though fragile) moral sensibility
concerning the need to remember and respond to historical injustices
committed against individuals or groups, evident in the emergence of
human rights tribunals, truth commissions, calls for official apologies,
demands for land restitution, etc. This sensibility has implications at
the level of symbolic politics, criminal justice, and
restitution/compensation. The aim of the paper is to assess two attempts
to articulate the implications of this new sensibility for our
understanding of the role of justice in the context of regime
transitions: the "transitional justice" model and the "restorative
justice" account of truth commissions. Against these views, Allen argues
that truth commissions need to be seen as "principled compromises"
between justice and social unity, and as complements to a commitment to
prosecution rather than as alternatives to it.

 

BIO

Jonathan Allen was born in South Africa and studied philosophy at the
University of Stellenbosch. He received an MA in Political Science from
McGill University and a PhD from Princeton University. He has completed
a book manuscript on contemporary theories of social criticism and has
published several articles on the TRC. He is currently working on a book
tentatively entitled "Liberal Memory: Remedies for Past Injustices in
Political Transitions".

 

(The paper is will shortly be available at the CGS website
www.cgs.uiuc.edu)

 

 

 

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