15 December 2020, 6:15-7:45 p.m., online (register here for reminder/calendar entry or join directly here with password "FUELS")

How shall we stop the most dreadful crimes worldwide? Building on Criminology and Transitional Justice perspectives, the lecture will explore the role of victims in the confrontation of state crimes and the enforcement of the following transitional justice process. It will be proposed that challenging state crimes and pursuing a transformative transitional justice process in the aftermath of human rights violations are more feasible if survivors have the potential to overcome the help-industry and assume a collective, proactive and leading role, independent from powerholders.

To develop this proposal, the presentation will look into three different cases involving state crimes that altogether represent the three possible constellations of transitional justice processes (post-dictatorial Argentina, post-war Germany and post-conflict Kenya). Notably, the concept of transition is used in a broad way, allowing for its application across the three cases despite the fact that they occurred before the concept was coined. The lecture will show victims´ involvement during and in the aftermath of state crimes in each case and its consequences in terms of ensuring truth, justice, reparations and guarantees of non-repetition.