Past Human Rights Research Articles

Tragedi Pelanggaran HAM di Masa Orde Baru: Pencarian Keadilan dan Keterbukaan

The purpose of this article is to explore the impact of human rights violations during the New Order period in Indonesia on the process of seeking justice. Through a qualitative research approach in the form of literature studies and content analysis, it is used to identify patterns of practices that inhibit openness in the Indonesian legal system. The results of the study highlight the importance of comprehensive legal reform to remedy this dark past, as well as to create a fairer and more transparent legal system for all citizens. The implication of this study is the need for concrete actions to strengthen independent and transparent law enforcement agencies and ensure that past human rights violations are prosecuted fairly. Thus, this article emphasizes the urgency to achieve greater justice in the Indonesian legal system.

Snapshots of Ghana’s Contested Restorative Justice Programme

ABSTRACT∞ Ghana’s National Reconciliation Commission (NRC) was established under the administration of President John Agyekum Kufuor (2000–2008) to provide a forum for victims and perpetrators of past human rights violations to testify about their experiences. Despite increasing scholarly interest in the Commission’s work, a set of reparations that the government implemented as a preamble to the hearings remains understudied. Drawing on multi-archival sources, this article examines them, teasing out their social and cultural significance. Further, this article examines a set of witness protection provisions that the government carved out to encourage witnesses to testify, showing their impact on witnesses. This article concludes with an analysis of some coup perpetrators’ perceptions of their own blamelessness, arguing that such sentiments tend to provide the moorings for their proclivity to contest impunity, which is a challenge that truth commissions tend to face, requiring innovative approaches to public truth-telling exercises.

Formulation of the Aceh Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) in Seeking the Truth about Past Human Rights Violations in Aceh

This journal describes the formulation and implementation of the Aceh Truth and Reconciliation Commission (KKR) in revealing the truth regarding human rights violations that occurred in Aceh in the past. Aceh is one of the regions in Indonesia that has experienced armed conflict for decades involving the government and the Free Aceh Movement (GAM) group. This period of conflict has led to many cases of human rights violations, and the Aceh TRC has an important role in revealing the truth and seeking reconciliation between the parties involved. This journal will use a research methodology combining a qualitative approach and document analysis to investigate the role and performance of the Aceh Truth and Reconciliation Commission (KKR). Apart from that, this journal also evaluates the challenges and obstacles faced by the Aceh TRC in the process of revealing the truth. The results of this research found that truth disclosure carried out by the Aceh Truth and Reconciliation Commission (KKR) can provide deeper insight into efforts to overcome human rights violations in Aceh and contribute to understanding the reconciliation process in areas that have been affected by conflict.

Ensuring accountability, combatting impunity? The role of national human rights institutions in transitional justice

ABSTRACT During the past three decades, national human rights institutions (NHRIs) have become an increasingly common feature of transitional justice frameworks. Promoted by international organisations, including the United Nations and its relevant agencies, and by several regional NHRI networks, contemporary human rights policy and discourse has coalesced around the idea that NHRIs may contribute to transitional justice by ensuring accountability and combatting impunity. In practice, however, relatively little is known about the specific roles envisaged for and played by NHRIs in transitional and post-conflict contexts. This article examines the role of NHRIs in transitional justice from the 1970s to the present. Drawing on the mandates and experiences of 137 NHRIs, it demonstrates that NHRIs are increasingly being afforded responsibility for three types of accountability tasks associated with transitional justice: investigating past human rights violations, holding post-transitional actors and institutions to account; and managing the provision of reparations to victims of human rights abuses. This, it argues, represents a small but significant development, both for the practice of transitional justice and for the roles and functions of NHRIs.

Ideational Power and Institutional Change

Abstract Over the past three decades, truth commissions (tc s) have proliferated globally as an institutional practice for addressing past human rights violations in transitional and post-conflict societies. In light of discursive institutionalism, which emphasises the significance of ideas and discourse in institutional formation, continuity, and change, this study aims to offer an alternative explanation for the international proliferation of tc s by examining the role of ideational power and the dynamics of continuity and change in their institutional construction from the mid-1980s to the early 2000s. It analyses how particular agents, such as human rights movements, political leaders, and transnational discursive coalitions, construct, disseminate, and transform the idea of tc s in a historically and socially given context. Using process tracing to shed light on the institutional development of tc s, it identifies four phases in their discursive construction: i) discursive invention; ii) transnational recognition; iii) technical fine-tuning and intellectual consensus building, and iv) incorporation into new fields.

EU’S TRANSITIONAL JUSTICE POLICY, PROGRAMS AND INSTRUMENTS

The article examines the EU’s policy framework, programs and tools on support to transitional justice, and evaluates their impact and challenges. Transitional justice refers to the various ways of addressing the past human rights violations and serious crimes that occurred in contexts of political transition, such as post-conflict or post-authoritarian situations. The EU has adopted a comprehensive policy framework on support to transitional justice in 2015, which defines its principles, objectives, and modalities of engagement with partner countries and international and regional organisations on transitional justice issues. The EU has also used various instruments and actions to support transitional justice initiatives worldwide, such as providing financial assistance, engaging in political dialogue, offering technical expertise, and advocating for transitional justice norms and standards. The article also illustrates how the EU has supported transitional justice processes in different contexts and regions, such as dealing with the legacy of World War II, the fall of communism in Central and Eastern Europe, the war in the former Yugoslavia, and the Arab Spring. The article concludes by identifying some of the achievements and shortcomings of the EU’s involvement in transitional justice processes, such as contributing to accountability, recognition, trust, reconciliation, and non-recurrence; but also facing inconsistency, selectivity, conditionality, interference, cooptation, politicisation, fragmentation, duplication, etc. The article also suggests some ways to improve the EU’s policy framework, programs and tools on support to transitional justice, such as enhancing consistency, coherence, coordination, complementarity, and adaptability. The article also explores how the EU’s role and approaches in the field of transitional justice can affect its own identity and credibility as a global actor that promotes human rights, democracy, and the rule of law as core values of its external action.

The settlement of past human rights violations in Indonesia

The settlement of past human rights violations in Indonesia

After Authoritarianism: A Review Article

Abstract How does transitional justice impact democracy? In After Authoritarianism: Transitional Justice & Democratic Stability, Monika Nalepa convincingly challenges the “Spanish model” of transition, which argues that doing nothing in response to past human rights abuses is the best way to ensure a stable democracy. Focusing on the fates of authoritarian collaborators, Nalepa finds that transparency mechanisms—lustrations and truth commissions—tend to improve democratic representation by reducing political figures’ risk of blackmail; purges have more mixed effects, due to a loyalty-competency trade-off. Nalepa makes her case with a truly mixed-method approach, employing formal models, case studies, and statistical analysis of her own transitional justice data set. The book addresses essential questions for transitional justice, including what to do about authoritarian collaborators and institutions with bloody legacies. Given recent concerns about backsliding in even long-time democracies, the book is essential reading not only for those interested in transitions and human rights but also for those interested in understanding how best to strengthen democracy more generally.

Thinking Seriously: Discrimination in Papua Asymmetry Autonomy

The land of Papua is a gift. However, this gift belongs to the indigenous Papuan, so it is right when special autonomy interpreted the benefits of the original intent of the indigenous Papuan. This research is a doctrinal research with primary and secondary legal materials which are analyzed textually and contextually so that it finds the men behind the rule and the discourse of positive and negative discrimination that occurs. This discourse produces a particular light that special autonomy does not guarantee a solution to the Papuan conflict. Thinking Seriously about Special Autonomy Discrimination in Papuan results in a analysis that legal orientalism is influential in this matter. Referendum is a solution but does not solve the root of the problem. The Noken system will strengthen a patrimonial consolidated democracy. What the central government needs to do is resolve past human rights cases, accommodate people’s aspirations which have been manifested in various demonstrations and open space for dialogue between Papuan nationalists and other Indonesians. Special Autonomy is inherently regional within the federal state which is a middle way to overcome the power struggle over Papua.

Policing the Mexican Past: Transitional Justice in a Post-authoritarian Regime

Policing the Mexican Past: Transitional Justice in a Post-authoritarian Regime

Admitting (to) the past: transitional justice in the European and Inter-American courts of human rights

ABSTRACT : The Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACtHR) and European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) have developed divergent approaches to interpreting their temporal case admissibility criteria, despite those criteria being nearly identical on paper. This puzzling variation has important implications for the extent to which Americans and Europeans can pursue international legal recourse for human rights abuses committed during past civil conflicts and dictatorial regimes. The IACtHR has clearly established that states can be held responsible for ongoing human rights violations that originated prior to state accession to the Court. However, when victims of similar rights violations have submitted cases to the ECtHR, the Court has frequently declared their cases inadmissible. This article demonstrates that the divergent geopolitical origins of the ECtHR and IACtHR have driven the ECtHR’s narrower interpretation of its temporal jurisdiction relative to the IACtHR. Tracing this process sheds light on the conditions under which international courts can hold governments accountable for past human rights abuses in post-conflict societies.

Police reform in the aftermath of armed conflict: How militarization and accountability affect police violence

Police reform implementation has been widespread in post-conflict transitions. Responding to conflict recurrence and past human rights violations, among other factors, motivate reforms. However, we know little about the effectiveness of reforms in reducing police propensity for violence. How does police reform affect police violence after armed conflict? I argue that the nature of reforms poses a challenge to peace and stability: police reform may aggravate the problems it seeks to resolve. Increasing deterrent capacity reinforces militarization, a logic of organization to produce violence that accountability mechanisms – the generation of information and the imposition of costs on abuses – are unlikely to curb. I test these propositions on a panel of 55 post-conflict countries between 1985 and 2015. My findings challenge research suggesting that security reforms lead to peace. Results support policies that reduce police’s propensity to use force. Implications are relevant for domestic and international actors engaged in police reform.

Considering State Reparation for Victims of Gross Human Rights Violations in Africa: Challenges in the Effective Enforcement and Implementation of Victims’ Rights

Claiming reparations for human rights violation by states or by any governmental agencies, have been a vital challenge at local and international levels. Although, there has been few developments in theory and in reality of reparations for human rights violations by states in some parts of the world as will be seen later in this article, many of the violations committed in Africa, in places like South Africa, Uganda, Nigeria and elsewhere, during colonial times either remained unresolved, partly reparated or reparations denied completely. As a result of what has been said, issues concerning responsibility for gross human rights abuses have never been considered favorably in Africa. In some African states for example, the way states deal with past human rights abuses is often dependent on the way in which political change has occurred and the way the state deals with the tensions between justice, truth and reconciliation. Beyond the foregoing, irrespective of the legal requirement to afford reparation which in itself makes reparation a vital component of the underlying need to respect victims’ rights to justice and to underscore the role of law in society, reparation serves a number of purposes. One of such purposes include but not limited to victims’ right to recover and/or receive compensation or reparation for past violations; helping to restore the disequilibrium between those whose rights have been violated and society which typically underpins human rights violations. More 6so, assisting in victims’ rehabilitation and taking measures to prevent recurrence of violations will help victims overcome trauma, restore confidence in the legitimacy of the justice system and the affirmation of the rule of law.

MacDermott Lecture 1999: Past human rights violations: truth commissions and amnesties or prosecutions

This Lecture was given by Mr Justice Richard J Goldstone at Queen's University Belfast in 1999 and published in NILQ 51(2) (2000) 164–173.

The revolution of the freedom of opinion from the renaissance age to the reform era in Indonesia related to the enforcement of human rights

Every human being has a natural right that is inherent in him called Human Rights (HAM), which gives freedom of thought, opinion, and action to everyone. The idea of ​​human rights was born from events in the past when a physicist coined the Heliocentric Theory. Departing from the thought of Nicholaus Copernicus, finally, a revolution for freedom of speech emerged. This study examines the problem of how the history of the development of the revolution in the idea of ​​human rights in the world and how to enforce human rights in Indonesia? This study uses a normative method with a descriptive-analytical approach, while the legal materials used are secondary legal materials, namely library research. The result of this research is that the idea of ​​human rights stems from the thought of the Heliocentric Theory, although initially, Nicholaus Copernicus had problems because he was considered to be against the teachings of the Roman Church, in the end, the theory that was echoed was accepted, and since then freedom of opinion has been considered. Meanwhile in Indonesia, human rights already have an important position contained in the legislation, but its enforcement has not been fully successful, until now there are still cases of past human rights violations that have not been resolved.

News Media Access for Civil Society Actors During Democratisation Processes: The Case of the Transitional Justice Campaign in Uruguay

ABSTRACT Theoretical scholarship on media democratisation neglects the role of representing groups in civil society, which in new democracies emerging from authoritarian regimes are frequently marginalised. These groups may also contest the form of democracy that has been implemented, and the way in which it deals with key transitional issues such as past human rights violations. This study focuses on how such groups are represented in one post-authoritarian society: Uruguay, which returned to democracy in 1985. Through examining media access for civil society groups in the newspaper coverage of two critical plebiscites on transitional justice issues (1989 and 2009), combined with interviews with journalists and civil society representatives, it argues that there are significant barriers to media access for civil society actors in the return to democracy, which relate both to changes during the democratisation process and domestic journalistic norms. This signals the need for both greater attention to the normative media role of representation during processes of democratisation and a more critical approach to media democratisation theory.

The Role of Civil Society in Resolving Past Human Rights Violations in Indonesia

The Role of Civil Society in Resolving Past Human Rights Violations in Indonesia

The Role of Civil Society in Resolving Past Human Rights Violations in Indonesia

One of the important problems faced by the government in Indonesia is the demands for the enforcement of (severe) human rights that occurred in the past. This issue is no longer limited to the political will of the government, but the problem continues on how to formulate an appropriate conception of justice for the severance of relations with the past, whether by enforcing the law against past violations or the termination in other forms as has been done by several Countries in the world. In this paper using the literature study method by examining data sources related to this writing with the results of the study showing the weakness of the government's efforts to resolve past human rights violations so that community participation is needed to contribute to solving past human rights problems. in Indonesia by reviving the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, because its philosophy is very important in maintaining a more conducive harmonious social life.

English

The last decades witnessed the emergence of transitional justice as a global norm which obliges post-conflict transitioning states to address systematic past human rights violations through purposeful judicial and non-judicial mechanisms. While its typical architecture focused on formal transitions, the dynamics of non-regime transitions and compliance is often neglected in transitional justice literature, and the measures also signify manifold challenges. This article attempted to assess the beleaguered transitional justice measures implemented in Ethiopia’s current troubled non-regime transition which came after the authoritarian and Marxist TPLF/EPRDF regime collapsed in 2018 after violent anti-government protest. Consequently, under the new hybrid elites’ leadership, host of justice measures were implemented but they unfolded in the absence of both typical transition and guiding transition roadmap. Through the lens of compliance and resistance in transitional justice, the article finds that rather than addressing legacies of atrocious past, the flawed and instrumentalist implementation of contested justice processes and the mismanagement of the narrow window of opportunity led to unprecedented societal violence and new political complexities. The Ethiopian case, therefore, reveals that seeking the retributive transitional justice measure in the absence of typical regime change and inter-elites bargain, and in an ethnically polarized political transition exacerbate inter-elite discord, bolster ethnic-supported resistance from predecessor elites, and harbor the risk of resurgence of new violence. Hence, it falls short of achieving the compliance with the transitional justice norm such as ensuring accountability (fighting impunity), adequately addressing past wrongs through judicial and non-judicial means and also ensuring non-recurrence of the same in the future.   Key words: Transitional justice, compliance, challenges, Ethiopia, non-regime transition.

Aksesibilitas Pertanggungjawaban Pidana Dalam Penyelesaian Pelanggaran Hak Asasi Manusia Masa Lampau Di Era New Normal

Abstract
 Criminal responsibility in resolving past human rights violations based on the retroactive principle still creates polemic, because the use of the retroactive principle is considered to violate someone's human rights. Legal certainty means that a person cannot be prosecuted based on a retroactive law as guaranteed in the legality principle stipulated in Article 28I of the 1945 Constitution of the Republic of Indonesia, Article 1 Paragraph (1) of the Criminal Code, and Article 4 of Law Number 39 Year 1999 concerning Human Rights. The era of new normal habits causes legal aspects to be adaptive including accessibility to get justice, especially for families of victims of human rights violations that cannot be resolved, especially during the Corona Virus Disease 19 (Covid-19) pandemic. The research method used is normative legal research with a statutory approach and a case approach. The results show that there must be clear limitations on the use of the retroactive principle in Article 4 and the explanation of Article 4 of the Human Rights Law, the responsibility of subordinates as stipulated in the 1998 Rome Statute should also be regulated in Law Number 26 of 2000 concerning Human Rights Courts for ensure that no perpetrator is separated from the criminal accountability process and that the Human Rights Court should have an integrated special procedural law, through reconciliation political policy as mandated by the Constitutional Court decision Number 6 / PUU-IV / 2006 as access to justice for families of victims of human rights violations, especially in the midst of the Corona Virus Disease 19 (Covid-19) pandemic.
 Keywords: Retroactive Principle, Criminal Liability, Settlement Human Rights Violations, Corona Virus Disease-19 Pandemic.