Humanity’s Histories: Evaluating the Historical Accounts of International Tribunals and Truth Commissions

In Miriam Ticktin and Ilana Feldman, eds., In the Name of Humanity: The Government of Threat and Care. Pp. 27-57. Duke University Press, 2010.

28 Pages Posted: 17 Apr 2011 Last revised: 9 Mar 2020

See all articles by Richard Ashby Wilson

Richard Ashby Wilson

University of Connecticut School of Law; Department of Anthropology, University of Connecticut

Date Written: April 14, 2011

Abstract

Since the trials of high-ranking Nazi war criminals in Nuremberg during 1945-1946, commentators have been asking whether courts are the best place to write a history of war crimes and crimes against humanity. This debate gained momentum during the 1961 Eichmann trial in Israel and the Holocaust trials in France in the 1970s and 1980s, and took on new relevance during the wave of democratizations in Africa, Latin America and Eastern Europe in the 1980s and 1990s. During the 1990s, the United Nations and major donor governments adopted official policies stating that the task of writing a new official history was central to facilitating both co-existence and accountability after authoritarianism and violent conflict, and they promoted new institutions such as truth and reconciliation commissions to fulfill this undertaking. Now it is time to critically evaluate this range of institutions and ask: have international tribunals or commissions of inquiry actually provided significant insights into the origins and causes of political violence? How might states or international institutions document human rights violations in a way that is comprehensive and engages in a meaningful reckoning with the past?

Keywords: international criminal tribunals, truth commissions, historical accounts of human rights violations

Suggested Citation

Wilson, Richard Ashby, Humanity’s Histories: Evaluating the Historical Accounts of International Tribunals and Truth Commissions (April 14, 2011). In Miriam Ticktin and Ilana Feldman, eds., In the Name of Humanity: The Government of Threat and Care. Pp. 27-57. Duke University Press, 2010., Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=1809956 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.1809956

Richard Ashby Wilson (Contact Author)

University of Connecticut School of Law ( email )

65 Elizabeth Street
Hartford, CT 06105
United States

HOME PAGE: http://law.uconn.edu/person/richard-a-wilson/

Department of Anthropology, University of Connecticut ( email )

354 Mansfield Road
Storrs, CT 06269-1176
United States

HOME PAGE: http://anthropology.uconn.edu/person/richard-ashby-wilson/

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