Kumaravadivel Guruparan gives a talk as part of the Oxford Transitional Justice Research (OTJR) Seminar Series. In 2015, Sri Lankan witnessed regime change that removed President Mahinda Rajapaksa from power. Mahinda Rajapaksa was the President who led the war against the LTTE to its finish in 2009, a war in which thousands of Tamil civilians were killed. The regime change in 2015 was characterised by many of its supporters as a change that would deliver transitional justice. The new regime also employed the language of transitional justice, particularly in the UN Human Rights Council, in its ..read more

Habeel Iqbal gives a talk as part of the Oxford Transitional Justice Research (OTJR) Seminar Series. Kashmir is among the oldest unresolved international conflicts on the United Nations' agenda. Over the last few decades, India has imposed a state of permanent emergency in Indian-administered Kashmir, through 'draconian' domestic laws that quell the political struggle and the rights of the people of Kashmir. Thousands have been killed in extrajudicial executions, scores have been arbitrarily detained, and many subjected to enforced disappearances. Sexual violence has been used as a weapon of w ..read more

Douglas Guilfoyle gives a talk as part of the Oxford Transitional Justice Research (OTJR) Seminar Series. Following persistent rumours of criminal misconduct by some Australian Special Forces personnel in Afghanistan, an administrative inquiry was launched in 2016 by the Inspector-General of the Australian Defence Force. That inquiry's report revealed shocking evidence of 23 incidents involving 25 Australian personnel and resulting in 39 killings of persons hors de combat or under Australian control, as well as other misconduct. The inquiry recommended these incidents be prosecuted before ordi ..read more

This talk was given as part of the Oxford Transitional Justice Research (OTJR) Seminar Series. In this seminar, Dr Craig Jones discusses his newly published book, The War Lawyers. Craig’s monograph examines the laws of war interpreted and applied by military lawyers to aerial targeting operations carried out by the US military in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the Israel military in Gaza. Drawing on interviews with military lawyers and others, he explains why some lawyers became integrated in the chain of command whereby military targets are identified and attacked, whether by manned aircraft, dron ..read more

This talk was given as part of the Oxford Transitional Justice Research (OTJR) Seminar Series. This panel discussion explores the role of art in transitional justice and the depiction of transitional justice through art. We are joined by panellists Leslie Thomas, Bernadette Vivuya and Nadia Siddiqui. The event was co-organised with the Oxford Institute for Ethics, Law and Armed Conflict. Leslie Thomas is the founder of ART WORKS Projects, an Emmy-award winning art director, architect, and mother. Current projects include directing The Prosecutors, curating a touring exhibition on ending female ..read more

This talk was given as part of the Oxford Transitional Justice Research (OTJR) Seminar Series. Art is a radical form of political participation in times of transition. Arising out of 11 months of fieldwork at the Constitutional Court of South Africa and the South Africa Pavilion at the Venice Art Biennale, which included 130 interviews with key decision makers, the book 'The Justice of Visual Art: Creative State-Building in Times of Transition' explores three important areas of transitional justice: the theoretical framing of justice and art; the visual jurisprudence of justice measures develo ..read more

This talk was given as part of the Oxford Transitional Justice Research (OTJR) Seminar Series. Amnesties are a very common mechanism in transitions to democracy, approximately 85% of amnesties grant pardon to political crimes. However, the question of “what are political crimes in the amnesties context?” remains unanswered. The traditional approach laid by the duty to prosecute international crime and gross human rights violations used in international criminal law is not enough, there are numerous conducts which do not amount to international crimes and may still be contemplated with state cl ..read more

This talk was given as part of the Oxford Transitional Justice Research (OTJR) Seminar Series. Over the last five years, a variety of entities - governmental, non-governmental and those created by bodies within the United Nations - have determined that ISIS has committed war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide in areas it controlled in Iraq and Syria. The UN Commission of Inquiry on Syria and the US Holocaust Memorial Museum have independently determined that ISIS has committed genocide against the Yazidi religious community of northern Iraq, and underscored that the logic, nature, a ..read more

This talk was given as part of the Oxford Transitional Justice Research (OTJR) Seminar Series. Peace has been a notoriously difficult concept to measure because of the diverse ways in which it can be defined. Other than a general distinction between negative peace as the absence of violence, and positive peace as the absence of structural violence, i.e. norms, institutions, attitudes and societal features than can incite violence, there is little consensus on which norms, institutions, attitudes and societal features can nurture peace. On the one hand, policy makers need instruments to track p ..read more

This talk was the keynote seminar given as part of the Oxford Translational Justice Research (OTJR) Seminar Series Hope is generally elusive after a peace agreement that ends a civil war; Colombia is no exception. After Congress ratified a modified version of the peace agreement that lost the 2016 referendum, the FARC guerrillas demobilized and submitted to a newly created transitional justice court, the Special Jurisdiction for Peace; so did the Colombian military who had been tried for gross human rights abuses. The jurisdiction is meant to “keep victims at the centre,” advance the construct ..read more