College of Science

Physical, Biological, Mathematical and Computational Sciences

Visions Lecture Series

Satisfying Victims and Healing Societies: The Promises of Justice after Extreme Violence

Monday, March 17, 2008 - 8:00pm
Speaker:
Susan F. Hirsch, Director, Undergraduate Institute for Conflict Analysis and Resolution, George Mason University
Location:
Center for the Arts Concert Hall

Abstract

Justice meted out in domestic courts is assumed to promote social healing and quell the desire for revenge felt by victims of violence. Mass atrocity, genocide, terrorism and other types of extreme violence have spawned new approaches to justice, such as extrajudicial proceedings and international tribunals. Drawing from personal experience as a survivor of a terror attack and anthropological research on responses to extreme violence in the United States, Europe and Africa, Hirsch will explore several emerging approaches to justice that seek to fulfill the expectations of victims and societies. At this juncture, in pursuing justice for the world’s worst crimes, should we be more unilateralist or more universalist, more modest or more aggressive?