Dr Caitlin Biddolph1, Dr Caitlin Mollica3, Charlotte Carney2, Dr Rachel Killean2, Dr Wendy Lambourne2, Dr Kofi Bediako4
1University of Technology Sydney, Australia, 2University of Sydney, Australia, 3University of Newcastle, Australia, 4University of Melbourne, Australia
Biography:
Caitlin Biddolph is a Lecturer in International Relations at the University of Technology Sydney, Australia. Her research focuses on queering international law and transitional justice.
Caitlin Mollica is a Lecturer in Politics at the Newcastle Business School. Caitlin's research is interested in youth agency and participation, transitional justice, gender, access to justice and human rights.
Charlotte Carney is a PhD candidate at the University of Sydney. She has research interests in gender, race, and international justice, with her dissertation focusing on hybrid courts.
Wendy Lambourne is an Honorary Associate and former Chair of the Department of Peace and Conflict Studies, University of Sydney. Her interdisciplinary research over the past 30 years has covered the theory and practice of peacebuilding, transitional justice, reconciliation and psychosocial healing after genocide and other mass violence.
Kofi Bediako recently completed his PhD in International Relations at The University of Melbourne. His research focuses on the local impact of international participation in transitional justice in Africa comparing Ghana and Liberia.
Abstract:
Global instability has once again resulted in questions about the utility of the current approaches employed to pursue accountability for human rights abuses. The escalation of atrocities globally, which continue unabated, suggests a failure of justice, as even the most widely recognised abuses today fail to elicit a response. Silence also indicates an abdication of responsibility by the international community for the long-held norms associated with the obligation to end cultures of impunity. At a time when transitional justice is arguably most needed; current approaches are not fulfilling their aim, and individuals most affected by human rights abuses are questioning their relevance. Transitional justice (TJ) as such, is perhaps more than ever before, in crisis.
In response, we have put together a Special Issue (SI) soon to be published in the International Journal of Human Rights, which considers the opportunities that exist when we adopt an aspirational framework. Throughout the SI, scholars have, in different ways, and using diverse case studies, asked not what TJ is, but what it could be. Our SI, launched at this roundtable, assembles scholars from diverse backgrounds and experience, to critically evaluate the push and pull factors that might inform the creation of a more responsive TJ, capable of contributing to a less violent, more inclusive world. In different ways, the papers in the SI, some of which are represented at this roundtable illustrates that from crisis opportunities for transformation and reinvention emerge.