scholarly journals The Harms Caused: A Narrative of Intergenerational Responsibility

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maegan Hough
Keyword(s):  
Transitional Justice ◽  
Dispute Settlement ◽  
The United States ◽  
Residential Schools ◽  
Assessment Process ◽  
Intergenerational Justice ◽  
Indian Residential Schools ◽  
Canadian Context ◽  
Societal Responsibility ◽  
Independent Assessment

Born out of the Indian Residential Schools Settlement Agreement, the Independent Assessment Process is a program that provides monetary compensation to former students who suffered sexual and physical abuse at Indian Residential Schools. As “Canada’s Representative” during hearings of the Independent Assessment Process, this author, a young lawyer at the time, bore witness to grizzly accounts of acts perpetrated against claimants that left her unsettled. Unsettled by what was heard, yes, but also in her observations that the process did not satisfy the needs of all claimants, nor did it engage with her own sense of responsibility as a non-Indigenous Canadian. The author weaves together her experiences and observations as “Canada’s Representative” to explore intergenerational justice in a Canadian setting, and what processes might offer a more complete approach in handling the Indian Residential Schools legacy. First, shecanvasses the existing framework of dispute settlement in the context of Indian Residential Schools, namely criminal, tort, and alternative dispute resolution mechanisms. While pointing out the strengths these mechanisms do have to address some of the harms of Indian Residential Schools, she ultimately suggests their inherent legal limitations make them inadequate tools to provide redress to victims and engage society more broadly. The author goes on to define transitional justice, set out its established tenets and themes, and begins to map out a Canadian application of these principles to the Indian Residential Schools policy by drawing on examples from Australia, New Zealand, and the United States. These principles take shape as innovative instruments for advancing the goals of reconciliation and of Canadian society. They are not without their own flaws, however, as the author also points out, that may affect how Canadians—in particular, non-Indigenous Canadians—view their legitimacy. Lastly, the author analyzes prevailing views of societal responsibility to provide a normative underpinning for intergenerational justice in a Canadian context. She concludes by advocating Canadians move from a stance of guilt and blame toward one of a broad assumption of responsibility as they continue to grapple with the legacy of Indian Residential Schools.

Undermining Justice: The Political Framing of Actors in the Independent Assessment Process

2021 ◽  
pp. e20200051
Author(s):  
Sidey Deska-Gauthier ◽  
Leah Levac ◽  
Cindy Hanson
Keyword(s):  
Critical Discourse Analysis ◽  
Transitional Justice ◽  
Public Memory ◽  
Critical Discourse ◽  
Assessment Process ◽  
Elected Officials ◽  
House Of Commons ◽  
Interdisciplinary Study ◽  
Political Framing ◽  
Independent Assessment

This article presents findings from a critical discourse analysis of House of Commons debates about the Independent Assessment Process (IAP), an out-of-court compensatory adjudication process intended to resolve claims of sexual and physical abuse that occurred at Indian Residential Schools and one of five key elements of the Indian Residential School Settlement Agreement. Our analysis is guided by the question: What do elected officials’ discussions about the IAP reveal about the implementation of compensatory transitional justice mechanisms in settler colonial states, and about colonial relations (specifically attempts at reconciliation) more generally? Our study focuses on debates that took place between 2004 and 2019. We explored elected officials’ framing of both Survivors and the Canadian State in their discussions about the IAP. Our analysis reveals the limited reach of dialogue based in a partisan and antagonistic context and supports those scholars who assert that transitional justice is incompatible with reconciliation and decolonization. By way of contributing to the larger interdisciplinary study entitled Reconciling Perspectives and Building Public Memory: Learning from the Independent Assessment Process, of which this article is part, we reflect on what our findings mean not only for public memory but also for studying the IAP moving forward.

Transitional Justice Accountability and Memorialisation: The Yemeni Children Affair and the Indian Residential Schools

2014 ◽  
Vol 47 (1) ◽  
pp. 3-26 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ruth Amir
Keyword(s):  
Comparative Analysis ◽  
Transitional Justice ◽  
Cultural Influences ◽  
Building Blocks ◽  
Historical Institutionalism ◽  
Residential Schools ◽  
Dominant Culture ◽  
Indian Residential Schools ◽  
Settler Societies ◽  
Similarities And Differences

This article outlines the building blocks of transitional justice in democracies. Grounded in the premises of Historical Institutionalism, the article analyses the institutions and processes established and their effect on the outcomes. It offers a comparative analysis of two cases of transitional justice processes in democracies. These are the investigations of the disappearance of Yemeni children in Israel and the Indian Residential Schools Settlement in Canada. There are important similarities and differences between the two cases. In both settler societies the transgressions were part of aggressive assimilation policies directed at children in an attempt to wipe out the particular cultural influences of the children's family and community. In both cases, children were isolated from the influences of their ethnic group in order to be resocialised into the dominant culture. The dire consequences of both these were suppressed, denied and forgotten in official narratives. The different outcomes of these processes are explained by the differences in the intent to redress, the types of institution and the processes implemented.

scholarly journals CONSOLIDATED DEMOCRACIES AND THE PAST: TRANSITIONAL JUSTICE IN SPAIN AND CANADA

2011 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Ian Dunbar
Keyword(s):  
Civil War ◽  
Transitional Justice ◽  
Democratic Consolidation ◽  
Residential Schools ◽  
Violent Conflict ◽  
Emerging Democracies ◽  
The Past ◽  
Indian Residential Schools ◽  
Repressive Regime ◽  
Historical Legacies

The majority of scholarly consideration on the principles of transitional justice has focused upon how emerging democracies should deal with former regimes immediately following violent conflict. However, consolidated democracies have also begun to turn to transitional justice mechanisms in order to address historical legacies of violence and repression. This article examines Spain and Canada, two countries dealing with seemingly disparate issues: the legacy of the Civil War and Franco’s repressive regime, and the abuses of the Indian Residential Schools system, respectively. However, both nations have been forced to respond to similar questions regarding the merits of revisiting a painful past well after democratic consolidation. The article first discusses the proliferation of transitional justice principles into consolidated democracies, and considers the argument that such processes may destabilize and divide society, particularly by exacerbating federalist divisions. It concludes that despite the unique challenges of employing transitional justice so long after a transition, the Spanish and Canadian cases reveal the inevitability of confronting the past in response to charges of hypocrisy and illegitimacy. Consolidated democracies, embedded with principles of public contention and debate, are well-suited to respond to these challenges while maintaining political and societal cohesion.

Applied Anthropology in Transitional Justice

2017 ◽  
Vol 39 (1) ◽  
pp. 24-28 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jaymelee J. Kim
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Transitional Justice ◽  
Applied Anthropology ◽  
Theory And Practice ◽  
Assessment Process ◽  
Participatory Action ◽  
International Human Rights ◽  
Ethnographic Data ◽  
Human Rights Norms ◽  
Independent Assessment

The dissonance between local and global transitional justice imperatives has been the source of interdisciplinary debate with scholars highlighting the tensions between theory and practice. While researchers such as Sally Merry have discussed the human rights practitioner as a translator between global international human rights norms and local cultural understandings, little has been said regarding the potential for anthropologists to translate transitional justice between the state and survivors. This article demonstrates the need for applied anthropology in transitional justice models, illustrated with data drawn from the Canadian national transitional justice context. In this project, ethnographic data gathered from 2011–2014 is used to analyze the independent assessment process, or monetary reparations process. Using this example, I demonstrate a need for anthropological “translators” who can assess need, evaluate risk, and utilize a participatory action approach in transitional justice development.

Instructive Past: Lessons from the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples for the Canadian Truth and Reconciliation Commission on Indian Residential Schools

2012 ◽  
Vol 27 (1) ◽  
pp. 101-127 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jula Hughes
Keyword(s):  
Transitional Justice ◽  
Aboriginal People ◽  
Residential Schools ◽  
Class Action ◽  
Truth And Reconciliation Commission ◽  
Aboriginal Peoples ◽  
Royal Commission ◽  
Reconciliation Commission ◽  
Truth And Reconciliation ◽  
Indian Residential Schools

AbstractOver time, the Canadian state has used a variety of mechanisms to address its troubled relationship with its indigenous population, the most prominent of which so far was the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples (RCAP). RCAP was mandated to develop both a constitutional framework and a comprehensive social-welfare policy. Staffed predominantly with constitutional lawyers, it articulated a sophisticated constitutional theory, which was not implemented, and did little to ameliorate the living conditions of Aboriginal people. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission on Indian Residential Schools (TRC), while arising from the settlement of a national class action, can be seen as a successor commission to RCAP. It follows in the procedural footprints of RCAP in a number of ways, including in the profile of its key appointments. This article argues that looking back at the successes and failures of RCAP can be instructive for the TRC as it carries out its mandate, allowing us to predict some areas that will be particularly challenging. In these areas, the TRC will require a departure from the RCAP blueprint if it is to achieve the ambitious goals of a TRC in a non-transitional-justice context.

Why Adjudicate?

2012 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christina L. Davis
Keyword(s):  
Policy Process ◽  
Steel Industry ◽  
Dispute Settlement ◽  
Domestic Politics ◽  
The United States ◽  
Trade Disputes ◽  
Checks And Balances ◽  
Wto Dispute Settlement ◽  
Chinese Intellectual ◽  
Trade War

The World Trade Organization (WTO) oversees the negotiation and enforcement of formal rules governing international trade. Why do countries choose to adjudicate their trade disputes in the WTO rather than settling their differences on their own? This book investigates the domestic politics behind the filing of WTO complaints and reveals why formal dispute settlement creates better outcomes for governments and their citizens. It demonstrates that industry lobbying, legislative demands, and international politics influence which countries and cases appear before the WTO. Democratic checks and balances bias the trade policy process toward public lawsuits and away from informal settlements. Trade officials use legal complaints to manage domestic politics and defend trade interests. WTO dispute settlement enables states and domestic groups to signal resolve more effectively, thereby enhancing the information available to policymakers and reducing the risk of a trade war. The book establishes this argument with data on trade disputes and landmark cases, including the Boeing-Airbus controversy over aircraft subsidies, disagreement over Chinese intellectual property rights, and Japan's repeated challenges of U.S. steel industry protection. The book explains why the United States gains better outcomes for cases taken to formal dispute settlement than for those negotiated. Case studies of Peru and Vietnam show that legal action can also benefit developing countries.

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