AHRC-NSF MOU: Alternative Accountabilities for Past Human Rights Abuses

世界各国制定了创新战略，以追究过去侵犯人权行为的肇事者的责任。事实上，“过渡时期司法”机制已成为二十世纪末和二十一世纪初减少侵犯人权行为和加强民主的主要政策创新。过渡时期司法的实践已经催生了一个政策制定者、学者和公民社会非常感兴趣的研究领域。然而，迄今为止，在这一领域的系统和跨国研究集中在三个主要机制-刑事审判，真相委员会和大赦-及其对人权和民主的影响。然而，许多其他机制被广泛使用。因此，对过渡时期司法机制的全面影响感兴趣的学者、决策者和倡导者，缺乏对这些机制及其效果的完整阵列的研究和分析。（牛津大学）和凯瑟琳Sikkink（明尼苏达大学）旨在填补这一空白，提出一个经过实践检验的理论，涉及一系列过渡时期司法机制的影响。为此，他们打算在现有的过渡时期司法数据库中增加目前尚不明确的“替代问责制”（即，民事审判、清洗和审查、赔偿和习惯司法）。由于在处理内战造成的大规模暴行和由此造成的社会分裂时往往采用替代性问责办法，因此，除了在以往工作中分析的民主和人权成果外，方案研究员还将审查这些办法对和平的影响。该项目将提供第一个数据库，以促进对最新学术和政策问题的研究：替代性问责在加强人权保护、民主与和平的努力中是否取代或补充其他过渡时期司法机制？合作者先前的研究使他们有资格承担这个项目。在过去的五年中，独立调查员分别建立了两个最完整的过渡时期司法数据库。随后，在AHRC-NSF的支持下，他们开始构建一个新的大型N数据库，其中包括三个主要的过渡时期司法机制，以确定审判、真相委员会和大赦的哪些方面有助于或阻碍人权和民主的改善。PI在其当前的学术工作中发布了这项研究的初步结果，并以政策形式进行了介绍。他们还创建了一个完全可访问和搜索的数据库（2012年9月可在线访问），拟议的项目旨在扩展这一早期研究，并解决新出现的关于刑事司法适当性、可取性和有效性的批评。虽然国际刑事法院发现审判是改善民主和人权的核心，但他们并没有发现各国必须遵循单一的过渡司法途径。这导致他们探索替代责任在世界各地促进或限制人权，民主和和平成果方面发挥的特殊作用。一系列理论论证提出了这些替代性问责在何时、为何以及如何单独或与审判和赦免相结合的情况下可能会改善结果。目前还没有系统的数据或研究来回答这些问题。独立调查员先前的分析使他们假设，尽管目前在该领域专家中流传着充满希望的主张，但替代性问责在与起诉相结合时可能对人权、民主与和平的具体成果产生更积极的影响。因此，该项目将使PI进一步测试自己和其他人对过渡时期司法的方法，从而有助于学术辩论，并产生关于过渡时期司法机制和结果的更好信息，以促进冲突后和独裁后局势中的政策和宣传。PI已向NSF申请307，129美元和349英镑，844澳大利亚人权委员会进行为期两年（2012年9月1日至2014年8月31日）的研究和分析，替代问责制。该项目的学术价值包括开发一个新的理论，这些机制何时，如何以及为什么有助于人权，民主与和平，研究人员将产生学术出版物。该项目更广泛的影响包括：研究生和博士后研究员的学术和专业发展;通过在线访问1970年至今120个国家所有过渡时期司法机制的完整数据库，共享数据以促进学术、政策和宣传研究;以及编写和提出政策建议。

Countries around the world have crafted innovative strategies to hold perpetrators accountable for past human rights violations. In fact, "transitional justice" mechanisms have become the major policy innovation of the late twentieth and early twenty-first century to reduce human rights violations and strengthen democracy. The practice of transitional justice has spawned a field of study of great interest to policy makers, scholars, and civil society. To date, however, systematic and cross-national studies in this field have focused on three main mechanisms—criminal trials, truth commissions, and amnesties—and their impact on human rights and democracy. Many other mechanisms, however, are widely used. Scholars, policy makers, and advocates interested in the full impact of transitional justice mechanisms, therefore, lack the research and analysis of the complete array of those mechanisms and their effects.The proposed AHRC-NSF Collaborative Funding Opportunity between Leigh Payne (University of Oxford) and Kathryn Sikkink (University of Minnesota) aims to fill that void by generating an empirically-tested theory concerning the impact of a full range of transitional justice mechanisms. To this end, they intend to add to their existing transitional justice database currently uncharted "alternative accountabilities" (i.e., civil trials, lustration and vetting, reparations, and customary justice). Because alternative accountabilities are often adopted to deal with the massive atrocities of civil war and the resulting social divisions, the PIs will also examine their impact on peace, in addition to democracy and human rights outcomes analysed in their previous work. The project will provide the first database that will facilitate research on the latest scholarly and policy question: do alternative accountabilities substitute or complement other transitional justice mechanisms in the effort to strengthen human rights protections, democracy, and peace?The collaborators' prior research qualifies them to undertake this project. In the last half-decade, the PIs individually built the two most complete databases on transitional justice. Subsequently, and with support from AHRC-NSF, they began constructing a new, large-N database of the three main transitional justice mechanisms to determine what aspects of trials, truth commissions, and amnesties contribute to, or impede, improvements in human rights and democracy. The PIs are releasing preliminary findings from this research in their current scholarly work, as well as in presentations in policy form. They have also created a fully accessible and searchable database (available online in September 2012).This proposed project aims to extend this earlier research, and to address emerging criticisms concerning the appropriateness, desirability, and effectiveness of criminal justice. While the PIs have found that trials are central to improvements in democracy and human rights, they have not found that countries necessarily follow a single transitional justice pathway. This leads them to probe the particular roles alternative accountabilities play around the world in advancing or constraining human rights, democracy, and peace outcomes. A set of theoretical arguments propose when, why, and how these alternative accountabilities are likely to improve outcomes either in isolation or in combination with trials and amnesties. As yet, no systematic data or research exists to answer these questions. The PIs' prior analysis leads them to hypothesize that, despite hopeful claims now circulating among area specialists, alternative accountabilities are likely to have a more positive impact on the specific outcomes of human rights, democracy, and peace when combined with prosecutions. The project will thus allow the PIs to further test their own and others' approaches to transitional justice, thereby contributing to scholarly debate and also to producing better information on transitional justice mechanisms and outcomes to contribute to policy and advocacy in post-conflict and post-authoritarian situations.The PIs have requested $307,129 from the NSF and £349,844 from the AHRC to conduct two years (September 1, 2012 to August 31, 2014) of research on, and analysis of, alternative accountabilities. The project's intellectual merit involves developing a new theory of when, how, and why these mechanisms contribute to human rights, democracy, and peace that the researchers will produce for scholarly publication. The project's broader impact includes: academic and professional development for graduate students and post-doctoral fellows; data sharing to further scholarly, policy, and advocacy research through the online access of a complete database on all transitional justice mechanisms in 120 countries from 1970 to the present; and the preparation and presentation of policy recommendations.