The (Re)collection of Memory After Mass Atrocity and the Dilemma for Transnational Justice
When a state systematically murders its own people, how can a society ever recover? One solution advocated by social scientists and legal scholars alike is the development of collective memory – an enduring and shared memory of events – to heal the wounds of a tattered national conscience and prevent the recurrence of mass atrocities. But is collective memory compatible with judicial systems, which often are heavily influenced by notions of individualism?
An annual online symposium that is a partnership between Opinio Juris and NYU Journal of International Law and Politics (JILP) will contemplate just that. This year, the focus of that symposium is Professor Rachel Lopez’s article The (Re)collection of Memory After Mass Atrocity and the Dilemma for Transnational Justice.
The article explores the tension between the preservation of collective memory and another impulse that follows mass atrocity: the desire for justice. By design trials may be ill equipped to accommodate collective memory. Traditional rules of evidence and professional conduct often exhibit a single-minded focus on individual representation by replicating models that assume one client who autonomously makes legal decisions without consulting his or her community. Bound by these rules, attorneys must disrupt or even dismantle collective memory, thereby re-traumatizing their clients.
In this article, Professor Lopez offers an alternative. She urges a fundamental re-thinking of the law’s preference for individual memory in the context of transitional justice. She argues that the inclusion of victims’ collective memory will facilitate a better understanding of the collective harms that characterize mass atrocities and will serve the distinct goals of transitional justice, including reconciliation, the creation of a historical record, nation-building, and legal reform. She further contends that human rights lawyers should act as preservers and promoters of collective memory and explores potential avenues to accommodate its incorporation into legal proceedings.
The online symposium runs from Wednesday, November 11th until Thursday, November 12th. The commentators will be Mark Drumbl, Naomi Roht-Arriaza, Ruti Teitel, and Johan van der Vyver.