ABSTRACT
This multi-disciplinary collection interrogates the role of human rights in addressing past injustices. The volume draws on legal scholars, political scientists, anthropologists and political philosophers grappling with the weight of the memory of historical injustices arising from conflicts in Europe, the Middle East and Australasia. It examines the role of human rights as legal doctrine, rhetoric and policy as developed by states, international organizations, regional groups and non-governmental bodies. The authors question whether faith in human rights is justified as balm to heal past injustice or whether such faith nourishes both victimhood and self-justification. These issues are explored through three discrete sections: moments of memory and injustice, addressing injustice; and questions of faith. In each of these sections, authors address the manner in which memory of past conflicts and injustice haunt our contemporary understanding of human rights. The volume questions whether the expectation that human rights law can deal with past injustice has undermined the development of an emancipatory politics of human rights for our current world.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
part I|82 pages
Moments of memory and injustice
chapter 4|19 pages
Selecting the memory, controlling the myth
part II|60 pages
Addressing injustice
chapter 7|16 pages
Promoting reconciliation and protecting human rights
chapter 8|14 pages
Human rights as acts of faith
chapter 9|15 pages
The right to historical truth and historical memory versus historical revisionism and denialism
part III|64 pages
Questions of faith