Trauma and Vengeance: Assessing the Psychological and Emotional Effects of Post-Conflict Justice
Trauma and Vengeance: Assessing the Psychological and Emotional Effects of Post-Conflict Justice
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创伤与复仇：评估冲突后正义的心理和情感影响
DOI：
10.1353/hrq.0.0100
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发表时间：
2009
影响因子：
1
通讯作者：
David Mendeloff
中科院分区：
文献类型：
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作者：
David Mendeloff
战争罪法庭或真相委员会能否满足战争和暴行的受害者并为战争造成的创伤提供心理缓解？它们是否会降低受害者的报复心以及参与或支持暴力报复的可能性？或者冲突后正义的经历是否只会强化和加剧情感和心理痛苦？这些问题的答案对于讲真话在后独裁和战后社会中促进和平的作用的逻辑至关重要。事实上，过渡时期司法的核心论点之一是战时虐待的受害者要求真相和正义。然而，这些论点假设，平均来说，说真话的过程会给受害者带来心理和情感上的好处。然而，一些批评者认为，它们实际上弊大于利。尽管受害者对真相和正义的偏好有据可查，但我们对其实际影响知之甚少。本文通过调查现有的转型正义著名案例的经验证据以及法医和临床心理学的研究来评估这种影响。它发现了微不足道的经验记录，几乎无法支持冲突后正义的有益或有害影响的主张。尽管几乎没有证据表明说真话总体上会严重伤害个人，但正式的说真话过程可以满足受害者伸张正义的需要，减轻他们的情感和心理痛苦，并抑制他们复仇的欲望这一观念仍然非常值得怀疑。
Do war crimes tribunals or truth commissions satisfy victims of war and atrocity and provide psychological relief from war-induced trauma? Do they make victims less vengeful and less likely to engage in or support violent retribution? Or does the experience of post-conflict justice simply reinforce and exacerbate emotional and psychological suffering? Answers to these questions are central to the logic of truth-telling’s peace-promoting effects in post-authoritarian and post-war societies. Indeed, one of transitional justice’s core arguments is that victims of wartime abuse demand truth and justice. These arguments, however, assume that truth-telling processes, on average, provide psychological and emotional benefits to victims. Some critics have argued, however, that they actually cause more harm than good. Although victims’ preferences for truth and justice are well documented, we know considerably less about their actual impact. This article assesses that impact by surveying the extant empirical evidence from prominent cases of transitional justice, as well as research in forensic and clinical psychology. It finds a paltry empirical record that offers little support for claims of either salutary or harmful effects of post-conflict justice. Although there is little evidence that truth-telling in general dramatically harms individuals, the notion that formal truth-telling processes satisfy victims’ need for justice, ease their emotional and psychological suffering, and dampen their desire for vengeance, remains highly dubious.