International Organizations

Abstract

This chapter uses a select number of case studies to ask what role international organizations have played in memory activism and how effective have activists or international organizations been at changing commemoration of a contested past or generating public debate and policy change. It considers three different categories of violence: cases of colonial violence, Cold War violence, and wartime sexual violence and evaluates why they either failed or succeeded in attracting memory activism from international organizations. In each case it evaluates the presence and absence of a range of international organizations such as Amnesty International and the United Nations. It argues that due to the politics of particular cases and their resonance with other issues of concern to international organizations, particular cases of memory may more readily attract support. Recognition by international government organizations such as the UN carries particular influence and is therefore even more contested. Further to this, international support does not always result in positive change in terms of changing global memory of cases of historical violence.