Truth Commissions and Transitional Justice Processes in Africa: Assessing Impacts and Legacies

Adebisi Alade Announcement
Location
Ghana
Subject Fields
African History / Studies, Colonial and Post-Colonial History / Studies, Human Rights, Law and Legal History, Political History / Studies

Subjects: African history/politics, truth commissions, transitional justice, conflict, peacebuilding.
Venue: University of Ghana, Accra
Abstract Deadline: March 30, 2019.

The Confronting Atrocity Project Team announces a 2-day RoundTable Summit that will bring together expert scholars, policy-makers, and civil society stakeholders to discuss and comparatively assess the work, outcomes and legacies of national truth commissions and transitional justice processes in Africa. Of the more than 50 national truth commissions that have been established globally in the past three decades, one-third have been established in Africa.

 

Despite their growing global popularity, some scholars consider the success of truth commissions to be limited to establishing factual truth about human rights abuses rather than explaining why they happened or preventing their reoccurrence. Proponents counter that if done well, truth commissions can bring justice and closure to victims and reconcile conflicted communities. Given the polarizing assessments of truth commissions, this RoundTable Summit brings together a multidisciplinary group of scholars, policy-makers and practitioners to reflect on the impact and legacies of truth commissions and transitional justice processes in Africa. The keynote speaker will be Dr. Baba Jallo, the Executive Director of the recently established Gambian Truth and Reconciliation Commission.

 

Although the RoundTable is focused on Truth Commission processes, we welcome contributions on the broad theme of conflict transformation and transitional justice in Africa including:

  • Theorizing truth commissions and transitional justice
  • Conflict and post-conflict peacebuilding
  • Truth Commissions and Democratic Transition
  • Truth Commission Mandates and Politics
  • Truth Commission Investigations and Public Hearings
  • Truth Commissions Reporting, Recommendations and Implementation
  • Outcomes and Legacies of Truth Commissions

Participants will be accommodated at the University of Ghana Guesthouse close to the conference venue in the University of Ghana campus. Participants must submit their full papers two weeks prior to the conference.

To apply to participate, please send an abstract (not more than 300 words) with a short list of thematic keywords and a short biography of the author(s) not more than 75 words by March 30, 2019 to confrontingatrocity@gmail.com or aladea@mcmaster.ca.

Contact Information

For questions, feel free to contact the Coordinators of the Confronting Atrocity Project:
Dr. Bonny Ibhawoh – McMaster University, Canada: Ibhawoh@mcmaster.ca
Dr. Sylvia Bawa – York University, Canada: bawa@yorku.ca
Dr. Jasper Ayelazuno - University for Development Studies, Ghana: abembia@yahoo.com

Contact Email
aladea@mcmaster.ca