Truth, Justice, Retribution, Reconciliation? The Role of Commissions in the Peace Process

Dozent: Dr. Brigitte Weiffen

Following the example of various Latin American countries as well as the prominent case of South Africa, many states have created truth, reconciliation or historical clarification commissions after the end of civil wars.

This course aims to investigate these commissions more closely on the basis of empirical cases. How and under what circumstances are such commissions called into being? What functions should they perform? What tasks do these commissions have and what goals do they set themselves? How did the actual work take shape and how successful were they in achieving these tasks? Is there a relationship between the type of commission, the people working in it and its remit with the nature and length of the preceding conflict and the level of destruction? Or do other factors determine the form chosen for reconciliation and coming to terms with the past?

Following a general introduction, the course seeks to reconstruct individual cases. The aim is to achieve together a comparative overview in order to answer the questions mentioned above. The course seeks to encourage original research and has been designed in particular for MA students wanting to write their Master’s thesis in this area; it is, however, also open to others who are interested in the topic. Alongside the reading of the existing secondary literature, it seeks to investigate more closely individual cases on the basis of the available documents.

Literatur:

Leistungsnachweis: Two presentations (one on theory, one on a particular case), seminar paper