From Peace Review
Under the guest editorship of Dr. Noam Schimmel, Lecturer in International and Area Studies, UC, Berkeley, and Jacqueline Murekatete, Genocide Survivors Foundation Peace Review: A Journal of Social Justice invites essays for a special issue on Special Issue on Reparative Justice in Africa.
Reparative justice (also referred to as restorative justice in some contexts) seeks to repair – to the fullest extent possible and cognizant of the limits of repair – the harms caused by mass human rights violations, including genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes, and related mass atrocity. We conceptualize reparative justice as survivor-centred in ethics, policy, and practice. Reparative justice is frequently conceived of as one component of transitional justice’s broader aims and field. However, our goal in this special issue is to focus primarily on the human rights, welfare, experiences, perspectives, and concerns of survivors of severe and extensive human rights violations in relation to reparative justice values, efforts, policies, politics, and programs.
In this special issue, we invite contributions addressing reparative justice in Africa in post-genocide, post-conflict, and post-colonial contexts. Our geographic focus is Sub-Saharan Africa and the Great Lakes Region (Rwanda, Burundi, Congo, and Uganda), but we will consider submissions addressing any part of Africa. Countries of interest include but are not limited to: Rwanda, Burundi, Namibia, Zimbabwe, Malawi, Congo, Mozambique, South Africa, Angola, Cameroon, Sudan, South Sudan, Uganda, Nigeria, Ethiopia, Ivory Coast, Liberia, and Sierra Leone.
We are particularly interested in contributions from African scholars, grassroots activists, human rights practitioners and survivors of mass human rights violations in the context of genocide, war and other conflicts, and colonization in Africa. We welcome theoretical contributions as well as ones addressing policy and practice, case studies, normative reflections, and historical and contemporary commentaries and analyses. Examples of reparative justice best practices and successes, community development and rehabilitation, and discussion and analysis of the interface between human rights, humanitarian aid, development, transitional justice, and reparative justice are encouraged.
General themes that contributors can address in their essays include, but are not limited to, the following:
- Political, economic, religious, and social challenges to reparative justice
- Successful cases and best practices of reparative justice: policy and personal narratives
- The possibilities and limits of reparative justice ethically and practically
- Tensions and synergies between reparative justice and reconciliation
- The place of reparative justice in relation to retributive justice
- Reparative justice in international criminal law and at international and national criminal tribunals, including the Trust Fund for Victims of the International Criminal Court
- How survivors of mass atrocity conceive of reparative justice, particularly regarding gender-based violence and attacks on women
- Development and humanitarian aid and reparative justice
- Resistance to reparative justice: Who and Why
- Evaluation of development and humanitarian aid NGOs and their reparative justice policies and practices (or lack thereof)
- Reparative justice case studies and comparative analysis in Rwanda, Namibia, Congo, Kenya, Sierra Leone, South Africa, Ethiopia, Nigeria, and Zimbabwe
- Post-colonial reparative justice
- Psychology, trauma, healing, and psycho-social support services and reparative justice
- Education and reparative justice
- Commemoration and memorialization as components of reparative justice and symbolism within reparative justice
Content Questions
Expressions of Interest and questions to the guest editors are welcome. Please direct content-based questions or concerns to the guest editors:
Dr. Noam Schimmel, noams@berkeley.edu