Symposium
Accountability After Mass Atrocity: Latin American and African Examples in Comparative Perspective
May 6, 2009
9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m.
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
(1779 Massachusetts Ave, Washington, D.C).
RSVP cgs@gmu.edu by May 4.
This event is cosponsored by the Department of Public and International Affairs, Latin American Studies, Global Interdisciplinary Programs and Global Affairs.
Description
The past several decades have seen the rise of criminal prosecutions—through local, national, regional, and international institutions—as a means of holding alleged perpetrators accountable for war crimes, genocide, crimes against humanity, and other serious offenses. Critiques and assessments of these options have also increased. The moment is ripe not only for evaluating the efficacy and appropriateness of accountability efforts but also for raising foundational questions about the principles that underlie responses to mass atrocity. This conference will explore existing and emergent institutions of accountability after mass atrocity from an explicitly comparative perspective. Nations in Latin America and Africa have seen considerable, yet quite different, attention to accountability. This conference will offer scholars and practitioners an opportunity to examine the variety and varied success of justice initiatives in these contexts.
Participants will explore differences in each context with respect to conceptualizing key actors, such as victims, perpetrators, impartial judges, witnesses, and others, and also core concepts, such as accountability, justice, sovereignty, healing, transnationalism, reparations, reconciliation, among others. Moreover, the conference is especially concerned to examine the role of regional and international courts in accountability efforts in each context, and particularly their effects on domestic initiatives, thus shedding light on several key issues from a comparative perspective.
Agenda
[To download agenda in pdf format click here]
8:30 to 9:00 Breakfast and Registration
9:00 to 9:15 Welcome
Terrence Lyons, Center for Global Studies, George Mason University
Susan F. Hirsch, Institute for Conflict Analysis and Resolution, George Mason University
9:15 to 10:45 Latin America's Efforts to Account for Human Rights Violations
Speakers
Ronald Gamarra, National Human Rights Committee, Peru
Jo-Marie Burt, Center for Global Studies, George Mason University
Pilar Gaitán, Historical Memory, Colombian National Commission on Reparation and Reconciliation
10:45 to 11:00 Coffee Break
11:00 to 12:30 African Mechanisms of Accountability After Mass Atrocities
Speakers
Mark Drumbl, Washington and Lee University
Stephen Lamony, Coalition for the International Criminal Court
Graeme Simpson, International Center for Transitional Justice
12:30 to 2:00 Lunch
Preventing The New American Professionalism: Accountability for Lawyers, Doctors and Psychologists Shaping Torture
Keynote Address by Gitanjali Gutierrez, Center for Constitutional Rights
2:00 to 3:00 Research Notes: Comparative Analysis of Trials and their Impact
Speakers
Leigh Payne, University of Oxford
David Backer, The College of William and Mary
3:00 to 3:15 Coffee Break
3:15 to 4:45 Roundtable Discussion: Prosecutions as Mechanisms of Accountability
Speakers
Ruti Teitel, New York Law School
Diane Orentlicher, American University Washington College of Law
Susan Benesch, Georgetown University Law Center
4:45 to 5:00 Closing Remarks
Jo-Marie Burt, Center for Global Studies, George Mason University