Sunday, May 31, 2020

Mental Health and Dealing with the Past

O'Neill, S. & Hamber, B. (2020). Response on Mental Health to Dealing with the Past Consultation. Northern Ireland Affairs Committee Consultation on "Addressing the Legacy of Northern Ireland's past: The UK Government's New Proposals". INCORE, University of Ulster. Submitted online 31 May 2020 [Download]

Monday, May 18, 2020

Seminar: Trauma-Informed Approach

The second seminar in the Dealing with the Past series was hosted online on 18 May 2020, with some 250 people joining online. I chaired this important online event.

The seminar was entitled "The need for a trauma-informed approach to address the conflict's legacy" and was delivered by Professor Siobhan O'Neill on 18 May 2020. In this seminar Professor O'Neill presents the evidence on the transgenerational impact of trauma, and highlights the importance of a "trauma-informed" approach to addressing the conflict's legacy to protect the population from further harm.

The seminar is part of the Transitional Justice Institute (TJI) and INCORE, in partnership with Healing Through Remembering and the John Hume and Thomas P. O'Neill Chair in Peace, online seminar series. The seminar was chaired by Professor Brandon Hamber.

Thursday, May 14, 2020

Bibliography: Northern Ireland and transitional justice

List of key academic papers on Northern Ireland, dealing with the past and transitional justice, review the annotated list (56 references).
  • Aiken, N. T. (2010). Learning to Live Together: Transitional Justice and Intergroup Reconciliation in Northern Ireland. International Journal of Transitional Justice, 4(2), 166-188.
  • Aiken, N. T. (2015). The Bloody Sunday Inquiry: Transitional Justice and Postconflict Reconciliation in Northern Ireland. Journal of Human Rights, 14(1), 101-123. 
  • Christine Bell, 'Transitional Justice, Interdisciplinarity and the State of the "Field" or "Non-Field",' International Journal of Transitional Justice 3(1) (2009): 5–27.
  • Bell, C. (2003). Dealing with the Past in Northern Ireland. Fordham International Law Journal, 26(4), 1095-1147.
  • Brown, K. (2012). 'What It Was Like to Live through a Day': Transitional Justice and the Memory of the Everyday in a Divided Society. International Journal of Transitional Justice, 6(3), 444-466. 
  • Brown, K., & Ní Aoláin, F. (2014). Through the Looking Glass: Transitional Justice Futures through the Lens of Nationalism, Feminism and Transformative Change. International Journal of Transitional Justice. 
  • Campbell, C., & Ni Aolain, F. (2003). Local Meets Global: Transitional Justice in Northern Ireland. Fordham International Law Journal, 26(4), 871-892. 
  • Campbell, C., Ni Aolain, F., & Harvey, C. (2003). The Frontiers of Legal Analysis: Reframing the Transition in Northern Ireland. Modern Law Review, 66(3), 317-345. 
  • Campbell, C., & Turner, C. (2008). Utopia and the doubters: truth, transition and the law. Legal Studies, 28(3), 374-395.
  • Campbell, C., Ni Aolain, F. (2003). Local Meets Global: Transitional Justice in Northern Ireland. Fordham International Law Journal, 26(4), 871-892.
  • Duffy, A. (2010). A Truth Commission for Northern Ireland? International Journal of Transitional Justice, 4(1), 26-46.
  • Gawn, R. (2007). Truth cohabitation: a truth commission for Northern Ireland?, Irish Political Studies, 22(3), pp. 339 –361.
  • Hackett, C., & Rolston, B. (2009). The burden of memory: Victims, storytelling and resistance in Northern Ireland. Memory Studies, 2(3), 355-376. 
  • Hamber, B. (Ed.). (1998). Past Imperfect: Dealing with the Past in Northern Ireland and Societies in Transition. Derry/Londonderry: University of Ulster, INCORE.
  • Hamber, B. (2003). Rights and Reasons: Challenges for Truth Recovery in South Africa and Northern Ireland. [Journal Article]. Fordham International Law Journal, 26(4), 1074-1094.
  • Hamber, B., & Lundy, P. (2020). Lessons from Transitional Justice? Toward a New Framing of a Victim-Centered Approach in the Case of Historical Institutional Abuse. Victims & Offenders, 15(6), 744-770.
  • Healing Through Remembering. (2002). Report of the Healing Through Remembering Project. Belfast: Healing Through Remembering.
  • Healing Through Remembering. (2005). Storytelling audit: An audit of personal story, narrative and testimony initiatives related to the conflict in and about Northern Ireland (Compiled by Gráinne Kelly). Belfast: Healing Through Remembering.
  • Healing Through Remembering. (2006). International Experiences of Days of Reflection and Remembrance. Belfast: Healing Through Remembering.
  • Healing Through Remembering (2006). Making Peace with the Past: Options for truth recovery regarding the conflict in and about Northern Ireland. Belfast: Healing Through Remembering. 
  • Hearty, K. (2015). Legislating Hierarchies of Victimhood and Perpetrators: The Civil Service (Special Advisers) Act (Northern Ireland) 2013 and the Meta-Conflict. Social & Legal Studies, 25(3), 333-353. 
  • Hegarty, A. (2003). The Government of Memory: Public Inquiries and the Limits of Justice in Northern Ireland. Fordham International Law Journal, 26(4), 1148-1192.
  • Hegarty, A. (2004). Truth, Law and Official Denial: The Case of Bloody Sunday. Criminal Law Forum, 15, 1990246.
  • Jankowitz, S. (2018). The 'Hierarchy of Victims' in Northern Ireland: A Framework for Critical Analysis. International Journal of Transitional Justice, 12(2), 216-236.
  • Kinder, E. (2020). Non-recurrence, reconciliation, and transitional justice: situating accountability in Northern Ireland's oral history archive. The International Journal of Human Rights, 1-20.
  • Lawther, C. (2013). Denial, Silence and the Politics of the Past: Unpicking the Opposition to Truth Recovery in Northern Ireland. International Journal of Transitional Justice, 7(1), 157-177.
  • Lawther, C (2017) The truth about loyalty: Emotions, ex-combatants and transitioning from the past. International Journal of Transitional Justice 11(3): 484–504.
  • Dempster, L. (2019). 'Quiet' Transitional Justice: 'Publicness', Trust and Legitimacy in the Search for the 'Disappeared'. Social & Legal Studies, 29(2), 246-272. doi:10.1177/0964663919833027
  • Lawther, C. (2020). Haunting and transitional justice: On lives, landscapes and unresolved pasts. International Review of Victimology, 0269758020945144. 
  • Lundy, P., McGovern, M. (2006). A Truth Commission for Northern Ireland? Northern Ireland Life and Times Survey: Research Update, 46.
  • Lundy, P., McGovern, M. (2008). Whose Justice? Rethinking Transitional Justice from the Bottom Up. Journal of Law and Society, 35(2), 265-292.
  • Lundy, P., McGovern, M. (2008). A Trojan Horse? Unionism, Trust and Truth-telling in Northern Ireland. IJTJ, 2(1), 42-62.
  • Lundy, P. (2009). 'Can the past be policed? Lessons from the Historical Enquiries Team Northern Ireland. Journal of Law and Social Challenges, 11, 109-171.
  • Lundy, P. (2011). Paradoxes and challenges of transitional justice at the 'local level': historical enquiries in Northern Ireland. Contemporary Social Science, 6(1), 89-105.
  • Lundy, P., & McGovern, M. (2008). Whose Justice? Rethinking Transitional Justice from the Bottom Up. Journal of Law and Society, 35(2), 265-292. 
  • Lundy, P. and M. Mcgovern (2008). "Truth, Justice and Dealing with the Legacy of the Past in Northern Ireland, 1998–2008" Ethnopolitics, 7(1), 177-193.
  • Lundy, P. (2010). Commissioning the Past in Northern Ireland. Review of International Affairs, LX(1138-1139), 101-133.
  • Mallinder, L. (2019). Metaconflict and international human rights law in dealing with Northern Ireland's past. Cambridge International Law Journal, 8(1), 5-38. 
  • McDowell, S. (2018). Transitional Justice and the Politics of Inscription: Memory, Space and Narrative in Northern Ireland. The AAG Review of Books, 6(4), 260-262.
  • McEvoy, K. (2007). Beyond Legalism: Towards a Thicker Understanding of Transitional Justice. Journal of Law and Society, 34(4), 411-440. 
  • Kieran McEvoy, 2010, Making peace with the past in Northern Ireland, The Guardian, October, 2010
  • McEvoy, K. (2010). Truth, Transition and Reconciliation: Dealing With the Past in Northern Ireland. London: Willan Publishing.
  • McEvoy, K. (2018). Travel, Dilemmas and Nonrecurrence: Observations on the 'Respectabilisation' of Transitional Justice. International Journal of Transitional Justice, 12(2), 185-193.
  • Kieran McEvoy and Anna Bryson, 'Justice, Truth and Oral History: Legislating the Past "from Below" in Northern Ireland,' Northern Ireland Legal Quarterly 67(1) (2016): 67–90.
  • McEvoy, K., & McConnachie, K. (2013). Victims and Transitional Justice: Voice, Agency and Blame. Social & Legal Studies, 22(4), 489-513. 
  • McEvoy, K., Holder, D., Mallinder, L., Bryson, A., Gormally, B., & McKeown, G. (2020). Prosecutions, Imprisonment and the Stormont House Agreement: A Critical Analysis of Proposals on Dealing with the Past in Northern Ireland.
  • McEvoy, Kieran ;  Bryson, Anna; Gormally, Brian; Holder, Daniel; Greenberg, Daniel; Hill, Jeremy;  Mallinder, Louise (2016). Stormont House Agreement: Model Implementation Bill. Northern Ireland Legal Quarterly 67(1): 1-36.
  • Ní Aoláin, F. (2002). Truth Telling Accountability and the Right to Life in Northern Ireland Issue. European Human Rights Law Review, 5, 572.
  • O'Rourke, C. (2008). The Shifting Signifier of 'Community' in Transitional Justice: A Feminist Analysis. Wisconsin Women's Law Journal, 23(2).
  • Rolston, B. (2002). Assembling the jigsaw: truth, justice and transition in the North of Ireland. Race and Class, 44(1), 87-106.
  • Rolston, B. (2006). Dealing with the Past: Pro-State Paramilitaries, Truth and Transition in Northern Ireland. Human Rights Quarterly, 28(3), 652-675.
  • Bill, R., & Fionnuala Ní, A. (2018). Colonialism, Redress and Transitional Justice: Ireland and Beyond. State Crime Journal, 7(2), 329-348.
  • Rooney, E., & Aoláin, F. N. (2018). Transitional Justice from the Margins: Intersections of Identities, Power and Human Rights. International Journal of Transitional Justice, 12(1), 1-8. 
  • Slugger O'Toole, Debating Dealing with the Past in the Assembly, 10 October 2010.
  • Simpson, K. (2009). Truth Recovery in Northern Ireland: Critically Interpreting the Past. Manchester: Manchester University Press.
 "The Troubles,Conway Street ,Belfast,Northern Ireland -1970,(The Peace Line)" 
by Kaspar C is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0A


Tuesday, May 12, 2020

Lessons from Transitional Justice for Historical Institutional Abuse

A new article on "Lessons from Transitional Justice? Toward a New Framing of a Victim-Centered Approach in the Case of Historical Institutional Abuse" has been published by myself and Professor Patricia Lundy. The article was published in the journal Victims and Offenders in April 2020.

The article critically examines transitional justice mechanisms to determine if historical abuse inquiries can learn from this field of practice. The article explores the Northern Ireland Historical Institutional Abuse Inquiry which reported its findings in January 2017 as a vehicle for addressing what lessons might be learned or shared between the fields of transitional justice and investigations into historical abuse. Through a detailed analysis of empirical research with those that gave testimony to the Inquiry, including fourthly-three victims and Inquiry transcripts, the article explores to what extent the Inquiry was victim-centered, enabled victim participation (beyond giving testimony) and addressed victim needs. The article shows that many of the flaws of transitional justice mechanisms have been replicated when dealing with historical child abuse.

Drawing on lessons from transitional justice – both positive and negative – the article outlines five broad areas for consideration that could strengthen the victim-centered nature of approaches to dealing with the legacy of historical child abuse. The article concludes that addressing victims' needs should be at the center and drive approaches and processes for both transitional justice and historical institutional abuse.

To request the article contact me.

If you have journal access the article can be downloaded here.

Thursday, May 7, 2020

Breaking Binary History Online Seminar

The first of the "Dealing with the Past in Northern Ireland" seminar series is now available online. The seminar was entitled "Breaking Binary History: Can the Stormont House Agreement facilitate a broader and more representative understanding of the past?"" by Dr Adrian Grant on 7 May 2020.

The seminar is part of the Transitional Justice Institute (TJI) and INCORE, in partnership with Healing Through Remembering and the John Hume and Thomas P. O'Neill Chair in Peace, online seminar series.