Center for the Study of Democracy
and Center for Global Peace and Conflict Studies
University of California, Irvine
October 30-31, 2004

Hotel Laguna, Laguna Beach

Transitional justice denotes various legal processes following the demise of authoritarian regimes, civil wars and ethnic conflicts that attempt to establish peace, reconciliation, and, eventually, democratic consolidation. Institutions of transitional justice include truth commissions, lustration, reparations and property restitution, lifting statutes of limitation for crimes perpetrated under the former regime as well as prosecutions for human rights violations conducted by the international community.

Within the last 8 years, scholarly interest in transitional justice blossomed. This research is conducted with a variety of methods ranging from game theory and multivariate analysis to political psychology, historical institutionalism, legal theory and even hermeneutics and discourse theory. Since the field is relatively new and interdisciplinary in nature, scholars working on similar topics remain scattered across different departments of area studies, politics, law, history, sociology, and anthropology. The aim of this workshop is to bring these scholars to one conference room to discuss their work on:

Restitution of property rights, reparations, and compensation schemes;
Amnesty as an instrument of Transitional Justice;
Opening archives of the former secret police apparatus;
Screening laws (lustration) and truth commissions;
Criminal prosecutions for human rights violations;
The role of Transitional Justice in reconciliation and democratization;
International Criminal Tribunals.
The project is directed by Marek Kaminski of UC Irvine and Monika Nalepa of Columbia University.

Welcome to the Conference
Saturday AM: Catalina Conference Room

Marek Kaminski and Monika Nalepa

Theme I: Domestic Courts and Legislatures in Transitional Justice
Saturday AM: Conference Room

CHAIR: Monika Nalepa, Columbia University

Marek Kaminski, University of California, Irvine and Monika Nalepa, Columbia University, "Transitional Justice on Legislative Agendas: When do Post-communists Choose to Lustrate?"
Csilla Kiss, McGill University, "The Never-ending Story: Transitional Justice in Post-communist Hungary"
Mark Gillis, Charles University, Prague, "Czech Lustration in the Constitutional Court"
Rebecca Chavez, U.S. Naval Academy, "Court Independence and Transitional Justice in Argentina"

DISCUSSANTS: Gretchen Helmke, University of Rochester and Rein Taagepera, UC Irvine

Theme IIa: In Search for Reconciliation? Truth Commissions
Saturday PM: Catalina Conference Room

CHAIR: Russell Dalton, UC Irvine

Kimberly Theidon, Harvard University, "When the Truth is Not Enough: The Politics of Reparation and Reconciliation in Peru"
James Gibson, Washington University, St. Louis, "The Contributions of Truth to Reconciliation: Lessons from South Africa"
Lindsey Lupo, UC Irvine, “Processing the Violence: Commission Politics in Post-Transition Societies."

Theme IIb: In Search for Reconciliation? Truth Commissions
Saturday PM: Catalina Conference Room

CHAIR: TBA

Andrzej Zybertowicz, Dartmouth College, "Lustration as a probe into mechanisms of state capture in Poland"
Helga Walsh, Wake Forest University, "The Transformation of Transitional Justice in Germany after 1989: Justice, Reconciliation, and the Role of Symbolism"
Roman David, "Forgiveness Among Victims of Human Rights Violations in the Process of Dealing with the Past in the Czech Republic and South Africa"

DISCUSSANTS: Bernie Grofman, UC Irvine and Barry O'Neill, UCLA

Theme III: International and Domestic Incentives for Transitional Justice
Sunday AM: Catalina Conference Room

CHAIR: Wayne Sandholtz, UC Irvine

Nenad Dimitrijevic, Central European University, "Coming to Terms with the Evil Past: Does Serbia Need a Truth and Reconciliation Commission?"
Jon Elster, Columbia University, "Redemption of Wrongdoing"
Lilian A. Barria, Eastern Illinois University and Steven D. Roper Air War College, "New Efforts to Enforce Domestic and International Human Rights: The Criminal Tribunals for Cambodia and Sierra Leone"
Michael Struet, UC Irvine, "The Lessons of Transitional Justice and the International Criminal Court"
Carole Blackburn, "Redefining Sovereignty in the Context of Reconciliation: The Case of First Nations in Canada"

DISCUSSANTS: Stathis Kalyvas, Yale University and Terree Bowers, Chief Deputy City Attorney, Los Angeles

Keynote Address
Terree Bowers, Chief Deputy City Attorney, Los Angeles
"Truth Commissions or International Courts? The Case of Former Yugoslavia"

Theme IV: Roundtable on Endogenous and Exogenous Modes of Transitional Justice
Sunday PM: Catalina Conference Room

MODERATORS: Lillian A. Barria, Eastern Illinios University and Monika Nalepa Columbia University