De-linkage Processes and Grassroots Movements in Transitional Justice

Transitional justice literature has highlighted a negative relationship between enforced disappearances and reconciliation in post-conflict settings. Little attention has been paid to how human rights issues can become stepping-stones to reconciliation. The article explains the transformation of the Cypriot Committee on Missing Persons (CMP) from an inoperative body into a successful humanitarian forum, paving the way for the pro-rapprochement bi-communal grassroots mobilization of the relatives of the missing. By juxtaposing the experience of Cyprus with other societies confronting similar problems, the article shows how the issue of the missing can become a driving force for reconciliation. The findings indicate that a policy delinking humanitarian exhumations from the prospect of a wider political settlement facilitates positive transformation in protracted human rights problems and opens up a window of opportunity to grassroots actors.

From Conflict to Peace?:The Rights Abuses of Women and Girls in Northern Ireland

This article is based on primary research conducted by the authors in Northern Ireland in Mourne House women’s unit at Maghaberry Prison in 2004 and in Ash House women’s prison unit in Hydebank Wood Young Offender Centre from 2005-2006. It explores the imprisonment of women in prison in the context of a society slowly and unevenly emerging from violent conflict and against a backdrop of the global rise of women’s imprisonment over the past two decades. The history of the gendered punishment of politically motivated prisoners is explored, followed by discussion of the findings of primary research in Mourne House women’s unit and, following its closure, in Ash House. The conclusion analyses how women’s prison experiences in the North contribute to an understanding of the contested terrain of agency and resistance. Finally, the article explores the potential for, and barriers, to change within women’s imprisonment in Northern Ireland.

Price Discrimination in Quantity Setting Oligopoly

We analyze a two-stage quantity setting oligopolistic price discrimination game. In the first stage firms choose capacities and in the second stage they simultaneously choose the share that they assign to each segment. At the equilibrium the firms focus more on the high-valuation customers. When the capacities in the first stage are endogenous, the deadweight loss does not vanish with the level of price discrimination, as it does in one-stage games and monopoly. Moreover, the quantity-weighted average price increases with the level of price discrimination as opposed to established results in the literature for one-stage games.

Pro-active protection against racialist discrimination in employment law - lessons from South Africa?

This study investigates the potential of the prohibition of indirect race discrimination to be used for law reform, and to uncover discriminatory practices. It reflects on the history and contents of the concept, and focuses in particular on its application in the Republic of South Africa

Transitional Justice: Origins, Boundaries and Methods in Transitional Justice

Scholars and practitioners working in ‘transitional justice’ are concerned with remedies of accountability and redress in the aftermath of conflict and state repression. Transitional justice, it is argued, provides recognition of the rights of victims, promotes civic trust, and strengthens the democratic rule of law. As serious scholarship flourishes around this critical concept as never before, this new collection from Routledge meets the need for an authoritative reference work to map a vibrant site of research and reflection. In four volumes, Transitional Justice brings together foundational and the best and most influential cutting-edge materials, including key works produced before the term ‘transitional justice’ gained wide currency but which anticipate approaches now included under that rubric.

The collection covers themes such as: truth and history; acknowledgement, reconciliation, and forgiveness; retribution, restorative justice and reparations; and democracy, state-building, identity, and civil society

Reentry as a Rite of Passage

Mary Douglas argues that, ‘There are some things we cannot experience without ritual.’ Ex-prisoner reintegration may be one of them. The punishment process involves an inordinate amount of ritual behavior, from the drama of the courtroom to the elaborate de-individuation processes involved in institutionalization. Durkheim argues that these rituals served a distinct purpose for society: engendering social solidarity and shaping penal sensibilities. Like the commission of a crime, the reintegration of the former outcast back into society represents a challenge to the moral order, a delicate transition fraught with danger and possibility. However, unlike punishment, reintegration is not a process characterized by well-orchestrated and familiar rituals. This lack might explain the failings of prisoner reentry in contemporary society. This article reviews the sociological and anthropological literature on rituals, explaining what they are and what they do, focusing in particular on the role of status degradation ceremonies in criminal justice work. Drawing on this literature, the core elements that would be needed to develop rituals of reintegration powerful enough to counteract these degradation effects are discussed, and the potential impact of such hypothetical rituals is explored.