DAFF 25A52 - Seeking Justice: A Transnational History of War Crime Trials (ONLINE)

This course aims to investigate the ties between resorting to criminal justice and the making of postwar international and domestic orders. The story of post-World War Two war crime trials was long told from a Western standpoint in a context where justice was (also) a way of waging the Cold War by proxy. Moreover, until recent years scholarly attention has predominantly focused on a few highly publicized international trials, especially the Nuremberg and the Jerusalem trials, leaving in the shadows the diversity of legal proceedings that took place before national courts of law and failing to account for what was ‘a continent-spaning, decades-long, ever-evolving project' (Devin O. Pindas). Three questions will lie at the center of class discussions: Firstly, how can one account for the evolving conceptions of the role of justice in the management of postwar settlements and regime changes? Secondly, how can one shed light on the ways in which justice has been served – and has been seen to be served – since the end of World War Two? Thirdly, how have international and domestic trials of war criminals impacted the ways in which large scale violence is told by historians and remembered by victims and outsiders? The course builds upon a diversity of oral, print and visual sources, including filmed trials and archival documents. Several scholars who have studied and/or taken part in legal proceedings for war crimes will also be invited to share their insights with the students.

Nadège RAGARU

English

None

Autumn and Spring 2024-2025

Students will be assessed based on the quality of their individual participation in class (contribution to collective discussions, to the online Forum), their oral presentation (exposé, presentation of a compulsory reading, an archival document, a visual source, animation of a debate with a guest lecturer, etc.) and their contribution to the final collective project presented during session 12. Grades The final grades will be obtained in the following way: Oral presentation 50% Final collective project 30% Participation in class discussion