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Seminars by Juliana González Villamizar

WiSe 2020-2021


Feminist contributions to the field of transitional justice

 

M.A. Juliana González Villamizar

Thursday: 04:00-06:00 p.m.


The course will introduce students to the main contributions of feminism to the field of transitional justice. Transitional justice is commonly understood as a set of mechanisms established by states in order to put an end to armed conflicts and authoritarian regimes, thereby enabling accountability and victims’ rights to truth, justice, reparation and non-repetition. Among these mechanisms are war crime tribunals, truth commissions, reparation programs and institutional reforms. Transitional justice was first implemented in 1945 with the Nuremberg trials in post-war Germany. Especially since the 90s, as the world was confronted with evidence of massive sexual violence committed against women during the Bosnian war, feminist authors and women’s movements worldwide began to make visible the gender bias of transitional justice mechanisms, and to struggle for their reform. In their view, such bias foreclosed a full account of women’s victimization and proper conditions for their participation and redress. In the course we will review four main areas of feminist critical contribution to transitional justice: 1) women’s participation in the design and implementation of transitional justice mechanisms; 2) gender biases in legal standards and procedures; 3) structural obstacles to redress women’s rights to truth, justice, reparation and non-repetition; 4) what exactly transitional justice is transiting ‘from’ and ‘to’ from women’s perspective.