Search: Affective Justice: Book Symposium: A Response

Alberto Fujimori in the Barrios Altos and La Cantuta cases, and the Peruvian Supreme Court overturned the pardon. The relentlessly pro-immunity platform in Affective Justice searches for a legal basis to absolve heads of state for committing mass crimes when no such basis exists. Then there is the wholesale erasure of pro-ICC African voices. Clarke and her team conducted an impressive number of interviews (200) with “thought leaders” in and around the African Union (p. xviii). The overwhelming majority of opinions reported in Affective Justice are hostile to the ICC...

[Curtis Bradley is the William Van Alstyne Professor of Law at Duke Law School.] I want to give my sincere thanks to the eight contributors who commented on my book this week as part of the Opinio Juris online symposium: David Moore, Jean Galbraith, Julian Ku, Kristina Daugirdas, Bill Dodge, Mark Weisburd, Mike Ramsey, and Ingrid Wuerth. Each of these contributors offered valuable feedback on aspects of the book, and I am extremely grateful for their insightful observations. The book covers a wide range of topics concerning the role of...

case in these periods following political repression. What we see in this ”global” phase of transitional justice is precisely the danger of disconnecting justice from context and politics. The recurring debate about politics and legality in transitional justice may well be in the spirit in which I wrote the book that is the subject of this symposium. It is also the spirit in which many generations of scholars are working all over the world on these critical questions from whom I will be honored to hear in the coming week....

Hans Kelsen pointed out that “the most illustrious thinkers have failed” to answer the question of what absolute justice for which “[hu]mankind is longing” is (p. 24).  He then concluded: “I must acquiesce in a relative justice and I can only say what justice is to me… justice, to me, is that social order under whose protection the search for truth can prosper. ‘My’ justice, then, is the justice of freedom, the justice of peace, the justice of democracy-the justice of tolerance.” Therefore, before and above the question of the...

[Mark Goodale is Professor of Cultural and Social Anthropology and Director of the Laboratory of Cultural and Social Anthropology (LACS) at the University of Lausanne and also Series Editor of Stanford Studies in Human Rights. This is the latest post in our symposium on Kamari Maxine Clarke’s book, Affective Justice: The International Criminal Court and the Pan-Africanist Pushback.] Kamari Maxine Clarke’s superb ethnographic and critical study of the place of the International Criminal Court (ICC) within African history and politics demands a fundamental reevaluation of the meaning of “justice” against...

a useful staring point in thinking about international justice. Aksenova does not argue, however, that perception is neutral. Our perception is influenced and mediated by contexts, power, language and culture. The book presents perception as an attitude that invites openness and reflection. Aksenova argues that the problem with international justice is not its “pluralistic discourses but rather the lack of self-reflection.”   Aksenova presents the concept of International justice 2.0, a reimagined form of international justice that could respond to the perceived failures in existing systems, which are fragmented, rigidly positivist...

President wants the Chief Justice replaced. One of the counsels of the Faculty is closely related to the President while another is an appointee ? No wonder there is call for resignation of all justices because that would please the incumbent President, and consequently counsels engaged in behavior that elicited a show cause order for contempt. If counsels invoke freedom to criticize, so do I. The attacks calling for the resignation of ALL justices and for the impeachment of these justices is destroying a vital institution of the country. Let...

...the choice of approach to global justice attracted some criticism by commentators. While Mohsen al-Attar argues that my book is both theoretically and methodically valuable for TWAIL, he also sees several shortcomings in particular with regard to its “Eurocentric tendencies” on approaches to global justice. Among the many important points raised, I limit myself to reflecting on two issues: My use of TWAIL and how it advanced my scholarship (as asked for explicitly by Mohsen) and the perceived neglect of post-colonial and distributional critiques of international economic law. TWAIL strongly...

courts, commissions of inquiries, prosecutions, and trial verdicts at the heart of the justice agenda, obscures the troubling aspects and outcomes, and the normative foundations of “international justice.” Norms and institutions are perverted in the pursuit of narrow interests, at the detriment of “justice for victims.” Ultimately, the story of hope and progress that international criminal justice tells itself may indeed just be reflective of, what  Mégret termed “the feeling that the [ICC]’s ultimate constituency is nothing but itself.”  Maybe someday the Court will revisit its “archive of teleology and...

sense. Colleen Murphy considers the line between transitional justice and everyday justice or injustice; transitional justice raises hard cases that any general theory of justice may also have to address. Dany Celermajer raises issues about the time frame of transitions and the implications for transitional justice, as does Manal Totry -Jubran. I wrote Transitional Justice in the context of dramatic regime changes, at the time appearing to be decisive and in bold strokes-from authoritarianism to democracy, crudely or broadly speaking. But could political transition be a long process of nevertheless...

force for dialogue grounded in empathy and emotional intelligence. He integrates aesthetic journeys in teaching international law to elucidate the – often hidden – emotive dimension of the field. Students grapple with the message of universality via distinct educational channels. This gives additional moral weight to traditional legal texts and judgements. The Book’s Ambition in a Nutshell I will offer some responses to the authors in the final post for the symposium. In lieu of conclusions here, I would like to briefly summarize the core ambition of the book. My...

organizing and hosting this symposium. I am delighted that such a fantastic team of commentators has agreed to contribute, including new voices and authors who have shaped the field or inspired the very idea of this book. Justice as Message started originally as a project about justifications of international criminal justice, which was part of habilitation process at  Humboldt University’s Faculty of Law. It was gradually trimmed down to its core, namely an explanation of the various ways in which norms, institutions and agents convey social meaning and speak or...