Across the world, mass graves, often containing a multitude of human remains, are sites of human loss, suffering and unimaginable acts of cruelty. While no one mass grave or its investigation is the same, all mass graves contain evidence that is essential to the realisation of justice and accountability goals for victims, affected communities, states in transition and the international community.

This powerful text provides the first systematic analysis of the second wave of memory and justice mobilization throughout Latin America. Pairing clear explanations of concepts and debates with case studies, the book offers a unique opportunity for students to interpret the history and politics of Latin American countries. The contributors provide insight into human rights issues and grassroots movements that are essential for a broader understanding of struggles for justice, memory, and equality across the globe, especially during our current unsettled times of political polarization, violence, repression, and popular resistance worldwide.

This book explores how societies deal with the effects of war on the historic environment. Written by historians, archaeologists, and conservation professionals, it offers a dramatic perspective on the war in Ukraine. It reveals the truth behind the Kremlin’s ‘just war’ narrative and touches on the complex relationship between war, society and the historic environment with examples of heritage conservation, archaeology and political expediency from Europe to Namibia. Prompted by the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022, the first section ‘Frontline Ukraine’ examines the manipulation of history, the use of propaganda, and the decolonisation of Russian memorials in former Soviet states. It highlights how illegal archaeological excavations, looting and the removal of museum collections beginning from seizure of Crimea in 2014 until the present day have contributed to an increasingly implausible Russian narrative which attempts to represent an imperial land grab as a ‘just war’. In the second section ‘Aspects of War’, the authors provide a wider perspective, with chapters on the influence of film, the effect of war on conservation, forensic archaeology, the reconstruction of damaged or destroyed museums as well as the relationship between America and the Hague Convention. Topical and lucid, this volume will be beneficial to students and researchers of history, archaeology, politics and international relations. The chapters in this book were originally published in The Historic Environment: Policy & Practice and are accompanied by an updated introduction and a new conclusion.

This book investigates why some societies defer transitional justice issues after successful democratic consolidation. Despite democratisation, the exhumation of mass graves containing the victims from the violence in Cyprus (1963-1974) and the Spanish civil war (1936-1939) was delayed until the early 2000s, when both countries suddenly decided to revisit the past. Although this contradicts the actions of other countries such as South Africa, Bosnia, and Guatemala where truth recovery for disappeared/missing persons was a central element of the transition to peace and democracy, Cyprus and Spain are not alone: this is an increasing trend among countries trying to come to terms with past violence. Truth Recovery and Transitional Justice considers the case studies of Spain and Cyprus and explores three interrelated issues. First, the book examines which factors can explain prolonged silence on the issue of missing persons in transitional settings. It then goes on to explore the transformation of victims’ groups from opponents of truth recovery to vocal pro-reconciliation pressure groups, and examines the circumstances in which it is better to tie victims’ rights to an overall political settlement. Finally, the author goes on to compare Spain and Cyprus with Greece- a country that remains resistant to post-transitional justice norms. This book will be of interest to students of transitional justice, human rights, peace and conflict studies and security studies in general.

In 1996, the Guatemalan civil war ended with the signing of the Peace Accords, facilitated by the United Nations and promoted as a beacon of hope for a country with a history of conflict. Twenty years later, the new era of political protest in Guatemala is highly complex and contradictory: the persistence of colonialism, fraught indigenous-settler relations, political exclusion, corruption, criminal impunity, gendered violence, judicial procedures conducted under threat, entrenched inequality, as well as economic fragility. Human and Environmental Justice in Guatemala examines the complexities of the quest for justice in Guatemala, and the realities of both new forms of resistance and long-standing obstacles to the rule of law in the human and environmental realms. Written by prominent scholars and activists, this book explores high-profile trials, the activities of foreign mining companies, attempts to prosecute war crimes, and cultural responses to injustice in literature, feminist performance art and the media. The challenges to human and environmental capacities for justice are constrained, or facilitated, by factors that shape culture, politics, society, and the economy. The contributors to this volume include Guatemalans such as the human rights activist Helen Mack Chang, the environmental journalist Magal? Rey Rosa, former Guatemalan Attorney General Claudia Paz y Paz, as well as widely published Guatemala scholars.

Exploring the impact of the International Criminal Tribunal (ICTY) on regime change in Serbia, this book examines the relationship between international criminal justice and democratisation. It analyses in detail the repercussions of the ICTY on domestic political dynamics and provides an explanatory account of Serbia's transition to democracy. Lack of cooperation and compliance with the ICTY was one of the biggest obstacles to Serbia's integration into Euro-Atlantic political structures following the overthrow of Milosevic. By scrutinising the attitudes of the Serbian authorities towards the ICTY and the prosecution of war crimes, Ostojic explores the complex processes set in motion by the international community's policies of conditionality and by the prosecution of the former Serbian leadership in The Hague. Drawing on a rich collection of empirical data, he demonstrates that the success of international judicial intervention is premised upon democratic consolidation and that transitional justice policies are only ever likely to take root when they do not undermine the stability and legitimacy of political institutions on the ground.

International crimes, such as genocide and crimes against humanity, are complex and difficult to prove, so their prosecutions are costly and time-consuming. As a consequence, international tribunals and domestic bodies have recently made greater use of guilty pleas, many of which have been secured through plea bargaining. This book examines those guilty pleas and the methods used to obtain them, presenting analyses of practices in Sierra Leone, East Timor, Cambodia, Argentina, Bosnia, and Rwanda. Although current plea bargaining practices may be theoretically unsupportable and can give rise to severe victim dissatisfaction, the author argues that the practice is justified as a means of increasing the proportion of international offenders who can be prosecuted. She then incorporates principles drawn from the domestic practice of restorative justice to construct a model guilty plea system to be used for international crimes.

Transnational crimes involve border crossings as an integral part of the criminal activity. They also include crimes that take place in one country with consequences that significantly affect other countries. Examples include human trafficking, smuggling (arms, drugs, currency), sex slavery, non-domestic terrorism, and financial crimes. Transnational organized crime refers specifically to transnational crime carried out by organized crime syndicates. Although several encyclopedias cover aspects of transnational crime, it is this encyclopedia′s emphasis on transnational justice, as well, that differentiates it from the pack. Not only do we define, describe, and chart the crimes and criminal activity, we also will include significant coverage of policing those crimes and prosecuting them within domestic and international court systems. Accessible and jargon-free and available in both print and electronic formats, the one-volume Encyclopedia of Transnational Crime and Justice will contain such entries as arms smuggling, art fraud, charity fraud, hacking and computer viruses, copyright infringement, counterfeiting, drug smuggling, extradition, human trafficking, intelligence agencies, international banking laws, Internet scams, Interpol, money laundering, pollution and waste disposal, price fixing, prosecution, sanctions, sex slavery, tax evasion, terrorism, war crimes, the World Court, and more. Features & Benefits: 150 signed entries (each with Cross References and Further Readings) are organized in A-to-Z fashion to give students easy access to the full range of topics in transnational crime and justice. A thematic Reader′s Guide in the front matter groups entries by broad topical or thematic areas to make it easy for users to find related entries at a glance. In the electronic version, the Reader′s Guide combines with a detailed Index and the Cross References to provide users with convenient search-and-browse capacities. A Chronology in the back matter helps students put individual events into broader historical context. A Glossary provides students with concise definitions of key terms in the field. A Resource Guide to classic books, journals, and web sites (along with the Further Readings accompanying each entry) helps guide students to further resources in their research journeys. An Appendix includes the Congressional Research Service Report on International Terrorism and Transnational Crime.

This Research Agenda maps thought-provoking research trends for the next generation of interdisciplinary human rights scholars in this particularly troubled time. It charts the historic trajectory of scholarship on the international rights regime, looking ahead to emerging areas of inquiry and suggesting alternative methods and perspectives for studying the pursuit of human dignity.

Examines the tragic development and resolution of Latin America's human rights crisis of the 1970s and 1980s. Focusing on state terrorism in Chile under General Augusto Pinochet and in Argentina during the Dirty War (1976-1983), this book offers an exploration of the reciprocal relationship between Argentina and Chile and human rights movements.