The convening of Peoplesโ Tribunals between retribution, restoration, and social transformation
Madlyn Sauer
Human rights defenders, nongovernmental organizations (NGO) and the social movement are fighting worldwide against state impunity after atrocities, crimes, violence, and structural injustices, in the name of human dignity and peopleโs rights. One established mean is the convening of Peoples Tribunals in the tradition of the Vietnam War Crimes Tribunal, organized in 1966 by initiative of the peace activist Bertrand Russell.
Civil society tribunals revolve around the question: ยปHow can various experiences of violence and injustice be qualified as crimes and transformed into public knowledge and recognition through law, even outside of official framings?ยซ The organizers have tackled this question over the past 50 years, and developed numerous models, procedures, designs, and practices of witnessing, acknowledging, remembering, assembling, and negotiating, thereby linking the three great justice ideas of retribution, restitution, and social transformation in each tribunal in a different way.
In her PhD project, ยปDoing Justice Otherwise,ยซ Madlyn Sauer examines various historical and contemporary, legalistic and creatively popular tribunal examples in Colombia, Germany, Japan and India for their diverse and resistant knowledge of law and justice in a comparative analysis by using a transdisciplinary, qualitative empirical research design.