Journalism on Service of Transitional Justice: Why the media and the justice should form a network in Syria with the goal of restoring victims’ rights before the war is over (original) (raw)

BEYOND REPORTING. MEDIA AGENCY IN TRANSITIONAL JUSTICE PROCESSES AMAIA ÁLVAREZ BERASTEGI BEYOND REPORTING. MEDIA AGENCY IN TRANSITIONAL JUSTICE PROCESSES AMAIA ÁLVAREZ BERASTEGI

Janus.net, 2020

Lecturer at the Universidad Pública de Navarra (Spain). PhD in Law at Ulster University, conducted postdoctoral research at the University of the Basque Country. She has published in international journals related to the areas of historical memory, transitional justice, history and journalism.. Abstract Despite the significant impact of the media in transitional justice processes, this relationship remains underexplored. The role of the media in building narratives of conflict and past human rights violations was traditionally framed within the dichotomy of promoting peace vs inflicting war. Yet, these roles, as well as the media systems themselves, need to be placed within more complex frameworks. This article analyses some of the key themes that connect transitional justice (the right to truth, justice, reparations and guarantees of non-repetition) and the media. The primary conclusion is that we need to go beyond the role of the media as an observer, and frame it as a possible agent of the overall process of conflict transformation and transitional justice.

Non-State Humanitarian Actors & the Media as Messengers of Peace & Reconciliation RL Vol XIII No 504 MMIX

Respublica Litereria, 2019

Conflicts devastate societies and polities and relief, rehabilitation and conflict & post-conflict recovery re-sources are getting scarcer. At the dawn of the third millennium, the Horn of Africa and the Gulf had become a nightmare to its populace with conflicts raging in Eritrea, Ethiopia, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan, Syria, and Yemen. Beyond the mainstream media, social media is now under the armpit of every young person in school and the misuse of such media has fanned conflicts in Africa. Civil conflicts are harmful as they take place within the territory of a single state and contribute to weaken its institutions. The social capital can be irreparably damaged. This background paper-cum-aide memoire-cum-for a national symposium on the role of humanitarian agencies & the media in peace on The Gulf & Horn of Africa is designed to address several facets that non-state actors CSOs, the Media in Alternative Conflict Management, - peace building and conflict resolution. Hence, it dwells upon rehabilitation and peace building: concepts, criteria and priorities. At the extreme, there is hate me-dia, which can directly incite a population toward genocide or ethnic cleansing, as did Radio Mille Collines in Rwanda in 1994 and Serbian and Bosnian-Serbian media during the early 1990s. Sustainable Peace building implies a complete re-constitution of the state and society that includes socio-economic reforms to overcome the profound causes of conflict and institutional reforms meant to democratise na-tions. The media is an important instrument in conflict & post-conflict situations. Experiences show that the pow-erful economic and political domestic and foreign actors are also aware of its importance to strengthen civic educa-tion in primary schools, adult civic education and developing premises of alternative conflict management approach-es that derive from several basic premises of the nature of conflict, change and power. While most conflicts are state driven, Somalia presents itself for ACM where the author argues for creating avenues for speaking to the protagonists as potential partners in peace. The case study focuses on governance and alternative conflict management training Capacity building to increase the organisational effectiveness and advocacy Capacity building for rehabilitative poverty alleviation Capacity building for community based psycho-social trauma management Capacity building for conflict management and preventive diplomacy Non-State Humanitarian Actors & the Media as Messengers of Peace & Reconciliation can contribute significantly to stem the tide of conflict and advancement of peace as they live among those who can wreak havoc in society and those who can make and sustain peace throughout the ages. Keywords: CSOs, SCEPS, ACM, conflict, media, social media, social capital, Messengers of Peace, psycho-social trauma management, preventive diplomacy "The times are where hate speech and populism audaciously become the political canvass and pet of vengeance pastime. It flaunts well on the deregulated media. We bear our nationhood on the tricolour of a decorum that our ancestors defended our freedom for three millennia."

Stirring the Justice Imagination: Countering the Invisibilization and Erasure of Syrian Victims' Justice Narratives

Stirring the Justice Imagination: Countering the Invisibilization and Erasure of Syrian Victims’ Justice Narratives, 2021

With most avenues to pursue justice for Syrian victims of international crimes blocked, Syrian and international justice actors within civil society and formal institutions are active in exploring ways to seek some form of justice and accountability. In doing so, many of them use the language of transitional justice as the most promising paradigm to keep justice on the international agenda and to resist the prevailing defeatism about the possibility to advance justice in the absence of a transition, as well as to remedy the marginalization of victims' experiences and narratives. Many of these actors are not only interested in criminal accountability. They also seek to stretch the boundaries of what is imaginable in terms of justice, beyond existing mechanisms and even beyond the judicial realm. They are striving to open up the justice imagination. In a maximalist sense, they are foraging for more ambitious justice narratives that can accommodate the victims' lived experiences. In a minimalist sense, they are resisting the erasure or invisibilization of the experiences of millions of Syrians affected by hackneyed justice narratives. This article refers to the work of these justice actors to expose and conceptualize some of the shortcomings of mainstream transitional justice discourses.

Syria Justice and Accountability Centre’s Campaign

Breaking_The_Mold Arab Civil Society Actors and their Quest to Influence Policy-Making

In light of the disruption of other justice paths, the Syrian civil society organizations, in cooperation with public prosecutors in several European countries, began to seek the prosecution of officials who committed war crimes in Syria. These efforts have given partial justice to victims who have no other way to rely on. These legal actions constitute a part of a broader and more complicated work context for organizations to document, collect, protect and classify evidence to be used in any prospective policies to achieve justice.

Social Media and Conflict Mapping in Syria: Implications for Peacemaking, International Criminal Prosecutions and for TRC Processes

Emory International Law Review, 2015

Early 2015 evidenced the first signs that Syria may soon be facing a transition from its present form of government into a new transitional government following the end of its civil war. Ideally, the transitional period will provide Syria with a secure and principled basis for governing until a full constitutional process can be employed and will also start the process of Syria's taking steps forward toward healing and reconciliation between the parties. Toward the later end, the transitional period will require Syrian peacemakers to select among options for how to best deal with past atrocities committed by the parties in pursuit of their war aims. This Article reviews five of these options and argues that Syrians should adopt a mix of formal judicial proceedings for those it does not grant amnesty to in order to get a peace agreement, and an informal yet principled mediation process during a transitional period for disputes that arise from the actions of rebel group activities. These later disputes should be followed by a process with a hybrid court for those who do not gain adequate resolution of their disputes through the informal mediation process.

Media and transitional justice: toward a systematic approach

This article addresses a major gap in the transitional justice literature by exploring the role of the media in transitional justice processes. We offer a framework for analyzing the information environment in which media intervention and transitional justice occurs.

Chasing justice for Syria: Roadblocks and detours on the path to accountability

PRIF Spotlight, 2017

On 7 August, she finally had enough. Carla del Ponte, former UN Prosecutor for the Former Yugoslavia and Rwanda, told reporters that she was stepping down as a member of the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Syria. Since 2011, the UN panel has meticulously documented mass atrocities committed by all sides of the Syrian war. And yet, its investigations have not led to the creation of any tribunal or court, prompting Del Ponte to denounce it as an “alibi” for the international community. Why has criminal account­ ability – as a major element in the broader search for justice – remained so elusive in Syria? Which pathways, both well-­trodden and novel, have been tried to circumvent political roadblocks? Where could the international community still do more?

Outlook Towards a Syrian-Led Approach to Transitional Justice

Engaging Displaced Populations in a Future Syrian Transitional Justice Process, 2021

This chapter analyzes the Syrian context and draws on lessons learned from the Liberian transitional justice experience. Specific transitional justice options that are suited to the Syrian context and tailored to its complex displacement scenario are explored. This chapter offers policy recommendations for a prospective transitional justice process for Syria, arguing that Syria's prospective transitional justice process ought to take an extraordinary form in order to meet the needs and aspirations of all members of the country's civil society, including the estimated 11.7 million persons displaced by the conflict thus far.

Advocacy journalism, the politics of humanitarian intervention and the Syrian war

Reporting Human Rights, Conflicts, and Peacebuilding, 2019

This is an authors' draft of a chapter in Reporting Human Rights, Conflicts, and Peacebuilding: https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-030-10719-2#toc Since 2011, the international media have done much to highlight the suffering of civilians in the on-going war in Syria, through innovative forms of reporting such as VR journalism and news games. However, by the end of 2016, questions were being raised about a number of high-profile news stories, such as the use of chemical weapons, the role of the ‘White Helmets’ relief workers and the bombing of Aleppo and other cities. Amid the claims and counter- claims of propaganda and ‘fake news’, news audiences glimpsed shifting and clashing explanatory framings of the Syrian war. A conflict that had initially been understood against the background of the ‘Arab Spring’ began to be seen as complicated by sectarian religious tensions, the rise of Islamic State, opaque factional and regional alliances, and international tensions reminiscent of the Cold War. An imperative to establish a moral framework for the story seemed to preclude more complex and searching questions about the motivations and actions of local and international actors.