RT Article
T1 Law, power and justice: what legalism fails to address in the functioning of Rwanda's "Gacaca" courts
JF International journal of transitional justice
VO 5
IS 1
SP 11
OP 30
A1 Thomson, Susan 1968-
A2 Nagy, Rosemary
LA English
YR 2011
UL https://krimdok.uni-tuebingen.de/Record/1471231925
AB In this article, we untangle the relationships among law, power and justice as they impact on the lives of ordinary Rwandans brought into contact with the state and local officials through the gacaca process. Drawing on 37 life-history interviews conducted in 2006, we find that gacaca reinforces a particular version of postgenocide justice that renders the average Rwandan citizen largely powerless over individual processes of reconciliation while serving to maintain a climate of fear and insecurity in their everyday lives. Locating the Rwandan case more broadly, we caution that a preoccupation with harmonizing traditional justice with international standards must look beyond forms of legality. While gacaca may be legally acceptable in a harmonized way, it is both a product and a producer of relations of state power that operate to impact negatively on conflict-affected individuals who bear the brunt of government-led initiatives to promote justice and reconciliation.
K1 Konflikt
K1 Auswirkung
K1 Vergangenheitsbewältigung
K1 Nation
K1 Versöhnung
K1 Strafverfolgung
K1 Rechtsprechung
K1 Recht
K1 Tradition
K1 Transitional Justice
K1 Opfer : Sozialpsychologie
K1 Ruanda
DO 10.1093/ijtj/ijq024