While many of the crimes we will discuss during our event lie in the distant past, they are far from forgotten. Many aspects remain highly contested: What caused the human rights violations such as those in Yugoslavia or in the Congo? Who should be put on trial and in which court? Moreover, the mass disappearances of people and the torture suffered continue to affect individuals, families and societies to this day.
By discussing historical and current examples of successful – and indeed unsuccessful – efforts to address past atrocities, we will examine the knock-on effects of impunity and silence as well as the methods that can be used in the fight against forgetting.
Nazi crimes: legal proceedings and the lack thereof in Germany
The tribunals set up to adjudicate that crimes of all crimes, the extermination of the Jews and mass murder during the Nazi period has in many respects set historical standards –even if it is unlikely that any court in the world could properly do justice to the enormity of the wrongdoing.
From Nuremberg to The Hague and the Pinochet effect
This panel looks at one success story: the development of international criminal justice, from the Nuremberg trials to the setting-up of ad hoc tribunals such as the tribunals for the Former Yugoslavia and for Rwanda and the establishment of the International Criminal Court in The Hague.