Author Interview: Protecting Human Rights and Building Peace in Post-Violence Societies

Nasia

Hadjigeorgiou

This book critically examines the relationship between protecting human rights and building peace in post-violence societies. It explores the conditions that must be present, and strategies that should be adopted, for the former to contribute to the latter. I argue that human rights can aid peacebuilding efforts by helping victims of past violence to articulate their grievance, and by encouraging the state to respond to and provide them with a meaningful remedy. This usually happens either through a process of adjudication, whereby human rights can offer guidance to the judiciary as to the best way to address such grievances, or through the passing and implementation of human rights laws and policies that seek to promote peace. However, this positive relationship between human rights and peace is both qualified and context specific. Through an interdisciplinary and comparative analysis of four case studies (Bosnia and Herzegovina, Cyprus, Northern Ireland and South Africa), the book identifies the conditions that can support the effective use of human rights as peacebuilding tools. Developing these, it recommends a series of strategies that peacebuilders should adopt and rely on.

You can find the full table of contents and free sample chapters here.

What inspired you to take up this project?

This book is the development of my PhD thesis. When I first started working on the thesis, I wanted to explain why the protection of human rights helps build peace in countries that are emerging from a violent past. I was sure they help, I just wasn’t entirely clear why. Then I started reading more, focusing on specific post-violence societies, and I soon realised that human rights (and human rights law in particular) are not always very good at this. I felt it was really important to understand the factors that determined their success as peacebuilding tools, as this could literally shape people’s lives.

Whose work was influential on you throughout the course of the project?

I find Kieran McEvoy’s work to be groundbreaking. He asks important questions and then answers them in a very compelling and clear manner.

What challenges did you face in writing the book?

I had two main challenges when writing the book: one methodological, the other personal. The methodological one concerned the interdisciplinarity of the project. I felt it was very important to examine the relationship between human rights and peace from different perspectives. This is why there are chapters in the book that focus on peace studies (ch. 2), constitutional and international law (ch. 4), political science (ch. 5), sociology (ch. 6) or a combination of these (ch. 3). This ultimately made the analysis in the book richer, but every time I changed discipline, I needed time to acclimate to the slightly different focus and ideas, distinct vocabulary and style of writing.

The personal challenge concerned the fact that I myself come from one of the post-violence societies explored in this book – I am Cypriot. It was unavoidable for me to draw from my personal experiences, but at the same time, I wanted to reach my conclusions and recommendations as independently from these as possible. Striking a balance between the personal and the academic was a fascinating, but not always easy exercise.

What do you hope to see as the book’s contribution to academic discourse and to constitutional or public law more broadly?

I think the book makes a point that to many people sounds obvious: “in order for human rights law to promote peace, certain conditions must be in place and here’s what they are.” Obvious as it may seem, there is not nearly enough talk about these conditions and what they actually mean in practice. So the book’s main contribution in different disciplines, not just law, is that it unpacks seemingly simple concepts and sheds light on them, in order to show that they are anything but. In terms of constitutional law more specifically, the book cuts through debates about whether judges should adjudicate politically controversial decisions, usually framed in democratic deficit terms, and identifies three underlying considerations that should shape this discussion: the type of conflict that is being adjudicated, the type of court that hears the dispute and the timing of the case in relation to the peace process as a whole.

What’s next?

When I first started working on this book, one of my main methodological dilemmas involved defining what I meant by ‘post-violence societies’. Ultimately, the definition I settled on was broad enough to encapsulate Bosnia and Herzegovina, Cyprus, Northern Ireland and South Africa, countries with very different pasts. I now want to explore whether the label ‘frozen conflict society’ would better suit some of these case studies (and others). So, my next research project tries to understand the dynamics prevalent in such frozen conflict societies, so that politicians, judges and civil society actors can tailor accordingly their responses to the different peacebuilding challenges faced there.

Hart Publishing is offering a 20% discount to IACL-AIDC readers. Order online at www.hartpublishing.co.uk and the code HE6 to access the discount.

Nasia Hadjigeorgiou is Assistant Professor in Transitional Justice and Human Rights at the University of Central Lancashire (Cyprus)