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1.What will help societies recover from #COVID19 asks @jennifernvictor? Can #transitionaljustice scholarship be stretched to address this question asks @monika_nalepa?
IMO: Qualified yes – TJ can be helpful. Thread on its applicability at least to the US.
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IMO: Qualified yes – TJ can be helpful. Thread on its applicability at least to the US.
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TJ is process of dealing with human rights violations during periods of conflict and/or repression. TJ aims to help societies ‘recover’ from atrocity & catastrophe.
TJ can provide resources for conceptualizing ‘societal recovery’ after COVID19 & need 4 ‘recovery of society’ 2
TJ can provide resources for conceptualizing ‘societal recovery’ after COVID19 & need 4 ‘recovery of society’ 2
TJ is needed when 4 conditions exist.
(1) pervasive structural inequality -
systematic inequality in the opportunities to do & become things of value (be educated, employed, avoid poverty, participate in pol instit) open to diff groups of citizens & in ability to shape rules 3/
(1) pervasive structural inequality -
systematic inequality in the opportunities to do & become things of value (be educated, employed, avoid poverty, participate in pol instit) open to diff groups of citizens & in ability to shape rules 3/
In US, a dominant theme of discussion of #COVID19 is that it is underscoring deep fault lines of inequality in the US on the basis of race & class (income, job security, insurance access, ease of continuing education).
Here's just one example: https://twitter.com/KeeangaYamahtta/status/1245856591280136192?s=20 4/
Here's just one example: https://twitter.com/KeeangaYamahtta/status/1245856591280136192?s=20 4/
(2) normalized collective & political wrongdoing
Human rights violations become a basic fact of life for certain targeted groups & implicate state agents. It is these violations that processes of TJ address usually.
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Human rights violations become a basic fact of life for certain targeted groups & implicate state agents. It is these violations that processes of TJ address usually.
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Normalized political wrongdoing is more complicated to identify or assert in a pandemic.
Critiques of Trump’s alleged distribution of fed resources on basis of ‘punish’ political foes/ ‘reward’ political adversaries are generating claims people will wrongfully die b/c of him 6/
Critiques of Trump’s alleged distribution of fed resources on basis of ‘punish’ political foes/ ‘reward’ political adversaries are generating claims people will wrongfully die b/c of him 6/
(3) Serious existential uncertainty-
This means a crisis (which can be positive (a peace agreement signed) or negative) generates fundamental uncertainty about where a community is heading.
I wrote an earlier thread existential uncertainty in #COVID19 https://twitter.com/drcolleenmurphy/status/1238482343477809157?s=20 7
This means a crisis (which can be positive (a peace agreement signed) or negative) generates fundamental uncertainty about where a community is heading.
I wrote an earlier thread existential uncertainty in #COVID19 https://twitter.com/drcolleenmurphy/status/1238482343477809157?s=20 7
(4) fundamental uncertainty about authority
Here the question is who should deal with past wrongs given government not a neutral party to wrongdoing & what is basis for claiming authority in context of democratization. 8/
Here the question is who should deal with past wrongs given government not a neutral party to wrongdoing & what is basis for claiming authority in context of democratization. 8/
In #COVID19, there is ongoing & deepening disagreement about roles & responses of federal government vis-a-vis states and lack of coordination in national response with predictably negative (indeed deadly) consequences as a result. https://twitter.com/Burrite/status/1246539634122899456?s=20
So far suggested we can identify analogues of conditions that generate the need for TJ.
TJ is oriented towards helping societies recover and transform from catastrophe so that 'never again' becomes a reality.
Next Q then is: what does that mean in COVID? 9/
TJ is oriented towards helping societies recover and transform from catastrophe so that 'never again' becomes a reality.
Next Q then is: what does that mean in COVID? 9/
Any adequate answer to societal recovery post-COVID will require an empirically informed understanding of 1) conditions that contributed to a weak early US response; 2) whether & how structural inequality & political malfeasance shaped vulnerability to/death from COVID. 10/
Any official COVID19 inquiry will face 3 challenges transitional justice processes confront
1) overcoming denial
2) disentangling standards for judgment to use when evaluating responsibility for the 'extraordinary' rather than 'ordinary'
3) countering charges of politicization 11
1) overcoming denial
2) disentangling standards for judgment to use when evaluating responsibility for the 'extraordinary' rather than 'ordinary'
3) countering charges of politicization 11
Denial: In the US there is no longer a shared basis of facts on which consensus could be based. This is made worse by officials explicitly deny what tapes show they asserted, government websites are altered to comport w/ 12 https://twitter.com/Sifill_LDF/status/1246137414122381315?s=20
Appropriate standards for responsibility:
One of the hardest Q's TJ confronts is how to assign individual or institutional responsibility in 'extraordinary' contexts. In COVID not only is context extraordinary, the standards for right action/fair distribution are not settled. 14
One of the hardest Q's TJ confronts is how to assign individual or institutional responsibility in 'extraordinary' contexts. In COVID not only is context extraordinary, the standards for right action/fair distribution are not settled. 14
Critics of TJ processes charge they are mere political vendettas not mechanisms of justice when political officials are held to account for past events.
In the US, I wrote an earlier thread on how the impeachment process mirrored some of this discourse15 https://twitter.com/drcolleenmurphy/status/1223302312610930688?s=20
In the US, I wrote an earlier thread on how the impeachment process mirrored some of this discourse15 https://twitter.com/drcolleenmurphy/status/1223302312610930688?s=20
Any COVID19 inquiry in the US is, in the current political environment, likely to face the same charges and same burden of establishing any inquiry (or other process of TJ) as authoritative. 16/
If above is right —> TJ scholars like @monika_nalepa can be enormously helpful in identifying processes or options that could counter denial, be authoritative, and contribute to recovery. Social science here is needed.
Qualifications on the above/differences between COVID19 & TJ:
COVID19 raises complex questions of when it is morally culpable to fail to prevent or allow death. The wrongdoing of interest to TJ concerns the intentional commission of wrongdoing and infliction of harm.
COVID19 raises complex questions of when it is morally culpable to fail to prevent or allow death. The wrongdoing of interest to TJ concerns the intentional commission of wrongdoing and infliction of harm.
