Doctoral Dissertation Improvement Grant: Ethics and Practical Justice: Analysis of an International Criminal Tribunal

纽约研究生Shea McManus将在Talal Asad博士的指导下，就当地对最近设立的黎巴嫩问题特别法庭的反应进行社会科学研究。2007年5月，联合国安全理事会通过一项决议，授权一个国际法庭起诉那些被指控暗杀黎巴嫩前总理拉菲克·哈里里的人。这将是第一个在福尔斯属黎巴嫩国家法院管辖的案件中拥有参照国内法确定的属事管辖权的此类法院。研究者将系统地考察这个法庭在黎巴嫩是如何被解释的，特别是由有影响力的宗教学者。研究者将开始对大约宗教学者制作的文件进行档案研究，以描述在提到法庭时引用的关键宗教概念。然后，她将与不同观点和机构隶属关系的宗教学者进行民族志采访，以了解这些概念是如何被解释和应用的。她将指出宗教学者就法庭提出的具体问题;他们如何看待这些问题与教义和日常生活观念的关系;以及他们如何将从祈祷和社区服务到政治活动的各种做法与他们对法庭的实际目标和规范性假设的解释联系起来。在项目的最后阶段，她将扩大采访样本，包括更广泛的神职人员领域，以测试研究的初步结果的有效性。这项研究很重要，因为它将扩大关于当地文化和国际机构的社会科学理论，以及这种关系如何在当地层面上实际产生。这项研究还将提供有关世界上一个对美国很重要的地区的宗教差异的重要信息。最后，本研究将有助于社会科学家的教育。

City University of New York graduate student, Shea McManus, supervised by Dr. Talal Asad, will undertake social science research on local responses to the recently established Special Tribunal for Lebanon. In May 2007, the United Nations Security Council passed a resolution mandating an international court to prosecute those accused in the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri. It will be the first such court to have a subject-matter jurisdiction framed with reference to domestic law in a case that falls under the jurisdiction of Lebanese national courts. The researcher will examine systematically how this court is interpreted in Lebanon, particularly by influential religious scholars.The researcher will begin by conducting archival research on documents produced by about religious scholars, to delineate key religious concepts being invoked in reference to the tribunals. She then will conduct ethnographic interviews with religious scholars of different viewpoints and institutional affiliations to understand how these concepts are being interpreted and applied. She will identify the specific problems that religious scholars raise about the Tribunal; the ways they think about these issues in relation to doctrine and notions of everyday life; and how they link practices ranging from prayer and community service to political activism in relation to their interpretations of the practical aims and normative assumptions of the Tribunal. In the final phases of the proeject, she will expand her interview sample to include a wider field of clerics to test for validity of the research's initial findings.The research is important because it will expand social science theory about local cultures and international institutions, and how that relationship comes actually comes about at the local level. The research also will contribute important information about religious differentiations in an area of the world that is important to the United States. Finally, the research will contribute to the education of a social scientist.