'Justice and Memory after Dictatorship' provides a ground-breaking socio-historical account of the global transformation of international criminal law after the fall of dictatorships at the end of the 1980s.

This collection adds to the critical transitional justice scholarship that calls for “transitional justice from below” and that makes visible the complex and oftentimes troubled entanglements between justice endeavours, locality, and memory-making. Broadening this perspective, it explores informal memory practices across various contexts with a focus on their individual and collective dynamics and their intersections, reaching also beyond a conceptualisation of memory as mere symbolic reparation and politics of memory. It seeks to highlight the hidden, unwritten, and multifaceted in today’s memory boom by focusing on the memorialisation practices of communities, activists, families, and survivors. Organising its analytical focal point around the localisation of memory, it offers valuable and new insights on how and under what conditions localised memory practices may contribute to recognition and social transformation, as well as how they may at best be inclusive, or exclusive, of dynamic and diverse memories. Drawing on inter- and multi-disciplinary approaches, this book brings an in-depth and nuanced understanding of local memory practices and the dynamics attached to these in transitional justice contexts. It will be of much interest to students and scholars of memory and genocide studies, peace and conflict studies, transitional justice, sociology, and anthropology.

The twentieth century has left behind a painful and complicated legacy of massive trauma, monstrous crimes, radical social engineering, creating collective/individual guilt syndromes that were often specters haunting the process of democratization in the various societies that have emerged out of these profoundly de-structuring contexts, such as Germany, Romania, Russia and others.

One of the most important political and ethical questions faced during a political transition from authoritarian or totalitarian to democratic rule is how to deal with legacies of repression. Indeed, some of the most fundamental questions regarding law, morality and politics are raised at such times, as societies look back to understand how they lost their moral and political compass, failing to contain violence and promote the values of tolerance and peace. The Politics of Memory sheds light on this important aspect of transitional politics, assessing how Portugal, Spain, the countries of Central and Eastern Europe and Germany after reunification, Russia, the Southern Cone of Latin America and Central America, as well as South Africa, have confronted legacies of repression. The book examines the presence - or absence - of three types of official efforts to come to terms with the past: truth commissions, trials and amnesties, and purges. In addition, it looks at unofficial initiatives emerging from within society, usually involving human rights organisations (HROs), churches or political parties. Where relevant, it also examines the 'politics of memory,' whereby societies re-work the past in an effort to come to terms with it, both during the transitions and long after official transitional policies have been implemented or forgotten. The book also assesses the significance of forms of reckoning with the past for a process of democratization or democratic deepening. It also focuses on the role of international actors in such processes, as external players are becoming increasingly influential in shaping national policy where human rights are concerned.

Justice and Memory after Dictatorship: Latin America, Eastern Europe and the Fragmentation of International Criminal Law provides a ground-breaking socio-historical account of the global transformation of international criminal law after the fall of dictatorships at the end of the 1980s.

The twentieth century has left behind a painful and complicated legacy of massive trauma, monstrous crimes, radical social engineering, or collective/individual guilt syndromes that were often the premises for and the specters haunting the process of democratization in the various societies that emerged out of these profoundly de-structuring contexts. The present manuscript is a state of the art reassessment and analysis of how the interplay between memory, history, and justice generates insight that is multifariously relevant for comprehending the present and future of democracy without becoming limited to a Europe-centric framework of understanding. The manuscript is structured on three complementary and interconnected trajectories: the public use of history, politics of memory, and transitional justice. Key words 1. Europe, Eastern—Politics and government—1989– 2. Collective memory—Europe,Eastern. 3. Memory—Political aspects—Europe, Eastern. 4. Democratization—Social aspects—Europe, Eastern. 5. Europe, Eastern—Historiography—Socialaspects. 6. Europe, Eastern—Historiography—Political aspects. 7. Social justice—Europe, Eastern. 8. Post-communism—Europe, Eastern. 9. Fascism—Socialaspects—Europe, Eastern. 10. Dictatorship—Social aspects—Europe, Eastern.