- International Institute for the Sociology of Law,
Oñati, Spain,
22-24 September 1999
Chair: Susanne Karstedt (Bielefeld, Germany)
Funded by the Volkswagen Foundation
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International Institute for the Sociology of Law
Antigua Universidad
Apartado 28
E-20560 Oñati (Gipuzkoa)
Tel. 0034/943 78 30 64 or 943 78 34 00
Fax. 0034/943 78 31 47 or 943 71 80 00
Email malen@iisj.es
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Susanne Karstedt, Bielefeld Workshop on legal institutions and collective memories. Summary of the debates and conclusion (1)
- During the second half of the century, there has been an increasing and common willingness in countries throughout the world to embrace legal means to come to terms with their past and to change their common understanding of it. At the end of the 20th century, national and international legal institutions are actively involved in this process as a vital part of a broader process of conflict resolution, redress, and restitution. Legal institutions in general are a medium of generating and establishing collective memories, as Maurice Halbwachs pointed out in his seminal work "The Collective Memory". But the extended role and task of the law and legal institutions in dealing with the past and collective memories is a more recent phenomenon. Law and legal institutions became actively involved in the public and political discourse that is centered on reshaping the collective memory. They have a decisive role in controlling the past and defining the future by regulating the collective memory.
It was the intention of this workshop to investigate this development, to explore the different ways, how the law and legal institutions are related to collective memories, and to analyse the various problems that result from the task of redefining the past and reshaping the collective memory. In particular, the task was to promote a comparative approach to the different situations, legal procedures and institutional settings within which the law deals with collective memories, and to draw on the specific contributions and lessons from the various types of processes and procedures that have emerged meanwhile.
From September 22 - 24, 1999, 26 participants from all over the world came together at the IISL to discuss these topics. The workshop was generously funded by the Volkswagen Stiftung, Germany. The participants came from the US, Canada, Costa Rica, Korea, Australia, Israel, the Czech Republic, Great Britain, Germany, Norway, Poland and Spain. Lawyers, political scientists, sociologists and historians contributed their perspectives to the task. Their contributions dealt with the legacies of the Nazi-Regime, the Holocaust and World War II, with the TRC's in South Africa, with legal procedures against human rights violations in South America, and with legal procedures in the postcommunist states of Eastern Europe and after the reunification of Germany. Many of the papers promoted a comparative perspective, stressing common characteristics as well as differences. Others started from a more general perspective on the problems and modalities of time and law, on the restructuring of biographies and the role of culture in these processes.
The workshop was organized around five working sessions and an evening lecture. In the evening lecture, Director J. Guiterrez (Spain) gave a presentation on the Gernika Peace Research Center and showed how this center works as a peace ressource in the Basque conflict. In the first session "Law, History and Collective Memory"the task of the workshop was outlined in papers by M. Osiel (Further Thoughts on Mass Atrocity, Collective Memory and the Law), A. Stinchcombe* (Authenticity of Experienced Culture and Legal Liberties) and S. Cohen (Nothing but the Truths: Absolute Findings from Relativistic Stories).
The second session centered on the problem of time, law and collective memories. E. Christodoulidis* (UK) introduced the topic; K. Scheppele (USA) showed how collective memories shape constitutions; K. Laster (Australia) demonstrated how judicial activism determined the re-visioning of the past of Australia; R. Herz (FRG) analysed the legacy of the Nazi Past in the system of juvenile justice; H. Dahl* (Norway) compared the legal purges after the occupation in the Nordic countries.
The third session Focussed on the seminal problem of truth finding versus negotiating the past. J. Mendez* (Costa Rica) stressed the "right to truth"and the extraordinary role of legal procedures in dealing with the past. L. Bilsky* (Israel) showed, in which way this process was politicized in the Kastner Trial, the first Holocaust Trial in Israel. G. Skapska (Poland) analysed the restitution of property in Poland and its political impact. H. Steinert* (FRG) criticized the role of legal procedures which establish a triumphant, but necessarily distorted truth as an instrument of power and domination.
The fourth session brought together contributions that centered on the role of individual biographies in the process of establishing collective memories. C. Heimer* (USA) showed, how biographies become legal cases in political transitions. R. Engelmann* (FRG) contributed to this perspective by a presentation of several studies on the inspection of personal files collected by the STASI. J. Siklova (Czech Republic) showed how biographies were constructed according to the demands of the old and new regime. Y.H. Shim (Korea) gave a presentation on the struggle of the Korean 'comfort women' after their return. K. Plett* (FRG) showed how early women lawyers were lost from collective memory after their emigration and never recovered.
The final session focussed on the selective nature of collective memories and dissent, and consequently more on forgetting the past. I. Markovits (USA) showed how the system of files and archives works in the process of selecting those memories that shape the collective imagination of the past. A. Zybertowicz* (Poland) demonstrated in which way the secret police has become a "non-reality" in postcommunist Poland. G. Simpson (Australia) analysed the contribution of international law in the process of shaping an international collective memory. G. Theissen* (FRG) presented the results of a survey on public opinion on TRC's in South Africa, and showed how deeply embedded dissent is in the former apartheid system. H. Adam* (Canada) brought together the various perspectives of the workshop in a comparative study of the different ways democracies deal with the crimes of previous regimes.
The participants stressed the seminal differences between the law and collective memories: The thin description of the legal discourse versus the thick desription of collective memories, the truth that is the result of legal procedures versus relativistic narratives; they analysed the displacement of the language of moral by legal discourses and the extension of the vocabulary of rationalization and legitimization. The participants found legal procedures to be double-edged: on the one hand, only legal procedures and prosecution of offenders will find at least parts of the truth for the public and the collective memory. On the other hand, legal procedures exonerate the many and thus contribute to collective amnesia. The concept of collective memories proved to be a useful analytical instrument: it integrates insights into the different national and institutional processes of coming to terms with the past, it relates the law and legal institutions to the structure of the public discourse, and it helps to understand different phases and the long waves of remembering and forgetting in these processes.
Papers marked with an asterisk are available from the IISL or Susanne Karstedt (see below). In addition, a paper by S. Veitch (UK) "Amnesty and the Legal Politics of Reconciliation in South Africa" is available.
(1) We greatly appreciate the permission by Ms. Karstedt to publish this summary. The identical version can be found on the website of the "International Institute for the Sociology of Law" under the following URL: http://www.iisj.es/karstedtcon.html
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Short biographical note Dr. Susanne Karstedt is a sociologist and criminologist. Presently, she is a visiting fellow at the Institute of Population Research and Social Policy at the University of Bielefeld. From July 2000 she will be a professor of criminology at the department of criminology, Keele University, Great Britain.
She has published on the process of coming to terms with the past in Germany after 1945 and 1989 in English and German (Coming to Terms with the Past in Germany after 1945 and 1989: Public Judgments on Procedures and Justice, Law & Policy, 20, 1998, 15-56; Die doppelte Vergangenheitsbewältigung der Deutschen: Die Verfahren im Urteil der Öffentlichkeit nach 1945 und 1989, Zeitschrift für Rechtssoziologie, 17, 58 - 104) as well as on violence in two generations of right-wing extremists in Germany, comparing early members of the NSDAP with the new right-wing extremists in the 80s and 90s.
Presently, she is doing research and publishing on elite criminality.
Prof. Dr. Susanne Karstedt
Department Of Criminology
Keele University
Keele, Staffordshire ST5 5BG
UK
Email karstedts@aol.com
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Citation Susanne Karstedt, Workshop on legal institutions and collective memories. Summary of the debates and conclusion. In: Trauma Research Newsletter 1, Hamburg Institute for Social Research, July 2000.
URL http://www.TraumaResearch.net/net1/confrep1/kars.htm
Copyright © International Institute for the Sociology of Law and Susanne Karstedt, all rights reserved. For permission questions, please contact via email the author karstedts@aol.com
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