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This article traces how food cultures in India reiterate social hierarches and caste logics of cleanliness and purity. Religious, intellectual and aesthetics battles about food preferences underline how the upper caste sensibilities justify and regulate everyday consumption and dietary practices. An integral part of Brahminical power is based on regulating and upholding dietary taboos grounded on caste ideology. Drawing from my ethnographic research on racism, migration, impunity in India over the last two decades, I examine key debates on racism and casteism, and illustrate how the rise of food-based discrimination against migrants from Northeast India is founded on an upper caste practice and logic of contamination, filth, and hygiene. I offer the concept of ganda (dirty) food to highlight how casteism and racism are informed by an upper caste reasoning of superiority, contamination, and privilege in India.

Ciudad Juárez se caracteriza, entre otros elementos, por ser uno de los poblados con mayores índices de feminicidios en Latinoamérica. A partir de esta realidad surgen múltiples iniciativas autogestionadas con el objetivo de buscar justicia y mantener en la memoria colectiva a aquellas mujeres y niñas que ya no están. De acuerdo a esto, Ellas Tienen Nombre surge como un proyecto cartográfico que busca dejar constancia de la ubicación de este tipo de crímenes y aportar a la construcción del relato de las víctimas. Así, desde una perspectiva de geografía feminista, este artículo propone la interpretación de dicho trabajo cartográfico como una estrategia narrativa que potencia la memoria y se establece como una herramienta multifuncional de análisis crítico que ayuda a visibilizar y comprender el control territorial de la violencia e impunidad, abriendo así un nuevo espacio de discusión para comprender el impacto de los crímenes feminicidas en el tejido social.

En México, el movimiento feminista ha luchado por la erradicación de la violencia feminicida, una expresión sistemática de odio que atenta en contra de la vida de las mujeres y las niñas. A partir de una metodología cualitativa, que se enfoca en la experiencia subjetiva de cinco madres de víctimas, este artículo problematiza la configuración de la espiritualidad como estrategia de subjetivación e individualización de las creencias. A su vez, la espiritualidad funge como una herramienta política que sustenta la exigencia de acceso a la justicia, contribuye al bienestar mental y surge, además, como mediación entre la subjetividad y el problema estructural que representan la impunidad e injusticia en el país.

Este estudo apresenta reflexões sobre a impunidade estrutural que atravessa as representações de feminicídio nas narrativas de Marina Colasanti, Arminé Arjona e Selva Amada, que contextualizam esse crime em sistemas patriarcais do Brasil, México e Argentina, respectivamente. Este recorte analisará como os códigos machistas relativizam a impunidade de criminosos ao mesmo tempo em que promovem a culpabilização e a desqualificação da vítima. Neste estudo, exploramos as representações literárias como arquivos sociais, levando em conta os conceitos de violência estrutural e as abordagens feministas de Rita Laura Segato (2013), Julia Fragoso (2010) e Lia Zanotta Machado (2010). Metodologicamente, a violência está sendo vista como um código machista de punição e controle do corpo da mulher. Palavras-chave: Violência contra a mulher. Literatura comparada. Códigos misóginos.

El derecho a una educación de calidad (CPEUM:3; PNUD,2020:4), obliga a Instituciones de Educación Superior (IES), a formar estudiantes científicamente. Formar en ciencias a un estudiante de Derecho es formar Juristas o profesionales capaces de operar sobre las Normas jurídicas para que en su confección y vigencia lleguen a generar justicia y equidad evitando impunidades y tantos objetivos ulteriores que impactan a la vez al resto de los Derechos humanos.Diferenciar definitoriamente los conceptos de “Jurista” y el de “Abogado litigante” parece sencillo, pero requiere de analizar la factibilidad metodológica de una práctica formativa extraordinaria que permita a estudiantes aspirar a ser amorosos amantes de la Norma Jurídica (como objeto de estudio del Derecho), y no solo “usuarios” a conveniencia de la misma. En un contexto de pandemia, mediante clases virtuales vía TEAMS, se opera este paquete didáctico innovador que ha generado hallazgos que podrían permitir la réplica de este ejercicio en otra institución de enseñanza del Derecho interesada.

What constitutes a strong or a weak norm? Scholars often refer to strong or weak, or strengthening or weakening norms, yet there are widespread inconsistencies in terminology and no agreed-upon measures. This has hindered the accumulation of knowledge and made it difficult to test competing hypotheses about norm development and contestation. To address these conceptual problems and their analytical implications, this article conceptualizes norm strength as the extent of collective expectations related to a principled idea and proposes two indicators to assess a norm’s strength: the level of international concordance with a principled idea, and the degree of international institutionalization of a principled idea. The article illustrates the applicability and utility of the proposed conceptualization by evaluating the strengths of two transitional justice norms: the norm of legal accountability and the norm of truth-seeking. In so doing, the article resolves empirical disputes over the origins and status of these norms. In particular, the analysis reveals that while legal accountability became a norm in the early 1990s and is today a strong norm, truth-seeking emerged later and remains a weak norm. More generally, the proposed framework should advance existing debates about norm contestation, localization, violation, and erosion.

Os professores Heronides Moura, Rosângela Gabriel e Paulo Roberto Gonçalves-Segundo debatem teórica e praticamente seus projetos de pesquisa acerca da linguagem e da cognição. De forma concisa, os pesquisadores apresentam dados importantes sobre: 1) sentenças metafóricas sobre corrupção em corpus de jornal, 2) efeitos da aprendizagem da leitura na memória e na percepção e, 3) análises de espaços conceptuais em trechos de discursos de parlamentares a favor da intervenção militar. A partir das três exposições, é possível concluir que o processo que subjaz essas pesquisas sobre cognição é a necessidade de uma leitura crítica da realidade. A compreensão dos fenômenos descritos (ou a falta dela) implica significativamente na legitimação de discursos repudiados pelas instituições e associações científicas, como os discursos de ódio e de impunidade. Além disso, os benefícios advindos da aprendizagem de uma leitura crítica reforçam que a base de uma sociedade justa se alicerça na perspectiva de uma educação de qualidade e na democracia.

No Brasil, a sociedade está se tornando, cada vez mais, punitivista, ou seja, solicitando a aplicação do sistema penal como alternativa para reduzir a criminalidade. Essa requisição é alimentada pelo sentimento de impunidade e sensação de insegurança, frequentemente expostos pela mídia como conteúdo de exigências criminalizantes. No entanto, esse sistema reproduz mecanismos que regem a sociedade brasileira, como o machismo, a homofobia e o racismo. Diante disso, o presente trabalho buscou verificar se estudantes do último ano do curso de Direito conhecem o Projeto de Lei 122/2016 (“criminalização da homofobia”) e quais posicionamentos esses sujeitos emitem sobre a citada proposta legislativa, correlacionando com a vertente teórico-epistemológica da Criminologia Crítica e suas aproximações com a teoria queer. Foi realizada, então, uma pesquisa empírica de cunho exploratório, através da aplicação de 200 questionários com estudantes do último ano da graduação em Direito de uma universidade particular de Recife. Os dados coletados foram tabulados e analisados através de uma abordagem quanti-qualitativa, demonstrando, sobretudo, que a maioria dos pesquisados não conhecia o Projeto de Lei e, ainda, resultando em categorias argumentativas importantes para a análise dos posicionamentos dos discentes. Esse estudo pode apresentar contribuições para o modelo de ensino jurídico vigente e, ainda, debates mais aprofundados no campo das implicações de movimentos criminalizadores no contexto brasileiro.

V. Geetha is a feminist activist, scholar and publisher based out of Chennai. In this interview she explores the intertwined concepts of caste, gender and power, their significance in determining the socio-political capital of persons and groups, how they decide access to education and employment (hence, class), and the ability to interact with the state, assume power or be delignated from it. She elicits several examples of violence, massacres, sexual assaults against Dalits in which caste positionality allowed serious crimes to go unpunished, even unrecognized. Drawing upon the rich tradition of Dalit scholarship and Dalit feminism, V. Geetha elaborates on the culture of civic and state sexual impunity in South Asia.

As defined by Ika Willis, slash is “fiction written by women involving man-on-man (m/m) sexual and/or romantic relationships” (290). Refracted through the contemporary theories of moral philosophy, this paper names such slash as cultural appropriation; however, it further contends that such cultural appropriation is not inherently unethical but instead represents a generative imaginative space in which new configurations of gender and sexuality might be theorized. Building upon this premise, this paper argues that slash’s appropriative nature only becomes problematic when it generates misrepresentations that decouple the gay community from its histories, both joyous and painful.

Continuous trauma syndrome (CTS) is the foundation for the characters in the film Impunity. The aesthetic choices in the narrative structure are an exploration of the discursive nature of v...

Through a detailed dissection of a crime committed by a young psychopath and his two high school friends, Sandra Rodriguez Nieto offers one of the most il-luminating accounts of Ciudad Juarez in La fabrica del crimen (Temas de hoy, 2012). While most narratives about the city’s various forms of violence focus on a single issue (i.e. feminicides, narco violence, maquilas, etc.), Rodriguez Nieto, through the critical lens of impunity and its effects, presents a comprehensive review of the phenomena that have transformed Juarez into the most violent city in Mexico. This study combines textual analysis with descriptions of Rodriguez Nieto’s professional trajectory, the material conditions in which she produced her work, and the emotional challenges she faced as a journalist in Juarez. The analysis aims to understand Rodriguez Nieto’s narrative in its full and specific context as well as to reflect on what it means to work in the most dangerous country for journalists in Latin America

A faith-based international nonprofit and its newly hired, narcissistic CEO are examined in this chapter. The CEO made up his own rules acting contrary to many leadership, financial, and HR practices, as well as ignoring the law. As difficulties mounted, there was little to no outcry. Until his abrupt departure seven years later, the CEO operated with impunity. The authors analyze the CEO’s tenure through four lenses – the leader, the followers, the environment, and their faith perspective. As a narcissist, the CEO quickly created a toxic environment and stayed one step ahead of everyone else. Employees were most often compliant and the few who were not found themselves stripped of their position as an example to the onlookers. With the Board in transition, there were no checks and balances and, coupled with a perception of instability, the environment was advantageous for a narcissist. Each of these three lenses was influenced by the faith system which the organization and its employees espoused. Faith-based compliance and organizational silence created an open door for the narcissistic leader and resulted in great damage individually and collectively. The authors offer lessons for individuals, groups, and organizations working under a narcissist.

This chapter examines representations of forms of violence inflicted on female bodies in Sefi Atta’s Everything Good Will Come and Lola Shoneyin’s The Secret Lives of Baba Segi’s Wives. I argue that the prevalence of rape and other forms of sexual violence in patriarchal societies as portrayed in the two novels demonstrates the close link between sexuality and social power configurations whereby male hegemony in its dominance confers power and a right to access women’s bodies even without their consent, and often with impunity for the violator. Drawing from Pumla Dineo Gqola’s postulations that rape is the communication of patriarchal power, reigning in, enforcing submission and punishing defiance, my textual analysis illustrates that rape is an exercise of patriarchal violent power against those who are safe to violate, in this case, mostly women and girls.

On the occasion of the 2017 UK election campaign, Amnesty International conducted a large-scale, sentiment-based analysis of online hate speech against women MPs on Twitter (Dhrodia 2018), identifying the “Top 5” most attacked women MPs as Diane Abbott, Joanna Cherry, Emily Thornberry, Jess Phillips and Anna Soubry. Taking Amnesty International’s results as a starting point, this paper investigates online misogyny against the “Top 5” women MPs, with a specific focus on the video-sharing platform YouΤube, whose loosely censored cyberspace is known as a breeding ground for antagonism, impunity and disinhibition (Pihlaja 2014), and, therefore, merits investigation. By collecting and analysing a corpus of YouTube multimodal data we explore, critique and contextualize online misogyny as a techno-social phenomenon applying a Social Media Critical Discourse Studies (SM-CDS) approach (KhosraviNik and Esposito 2018). Mapping a vast array of discursive strategies, this study offers an in-depth analysis on how technology-facilitated gender-based violence contributes to discursively constructing the political arena as a fundamentally male-oriented space, and reinforces stereotypical and sexist representation of women in politics and beyond.

Nurse practitioners working for the San Francisco Department of Public Health during the pandemic provided medical care to people experiencing homelessness during the pandemic. In San Francisco, more than 2,000 people experiencing homelessness were moved into shelter-in-place hotels during the pandemic. The shelter-in-place hotels offer a unique microcosm of our society, highlighting drivers of inequality such as race, class, and sex. Elements of White privilege were observed among people experiencing homelessness who were moved into shelter-in-place hotels. These elements included threatening violence with impunity, demanding special treatment, and perceiving one’s experience as unique and special.

"Has any Zimbabwean election ever solved anything?" "The problem is not the constitution but who counts the votes." (Local voices) (1)) 1. Introduction The recent overwhelming 'Yes' vote in the constitutional referendum on 16 March has led to two seemingly contradictory developments. The way has opened up for elections later in the year (the date has to be announced by 29 June), but it is unlikely that these will occur in a free and fair environment as demanded by the regional body, the Southern African Development Community (SADC), and by international donors who may provide the funding. By law Zimbabwe has to have set an election date by the end of June 2013 and before such elections the regional body SADC insisted that there be a referendum on a new constitution as agreed in inter-party negotiations after 2008. This took place peacefully, although amid a wider climate of intimidation and arrests, (2)) and the electorate voted overwhelmingly in favour. (3)) The negotiations over the latter in the Parliamentary Constitutional Select Committee (COPAC) have dragged on since 2009. Finally a draft constitution was agreed in mid-January 2013 with all parties making concessions at the last minute. The sticking points were choosing presidential running mates (a big problem for both Mugabe and Tsvangirai given faction fighting), devolution, a Constitutional Court, a National Prosecuting Authority separate from the partisan Attorney General, and reducing the powers of the executive. Many see the draft as very flawed but with little choice but to accept it. As things stand, if elections are not called in the first half of 2013 the government becomes ultra vires. (4)) There has always been a tendency in ZANU-PF to maintain the semblance of legality (even if post-hoc on occasion) despite its methods. There has been no significant progress towards security reforms/governance to prevent the violence of the 2008 elections being repeated or other reforms to ensure a free(ish) and fair(ish) election such as a truly autonomous electoral commission (ZEC) and reform of the degraded voters roll. Legislation to establish a Human Rights Commission passed through Parliament but its provisions on impunity for abuses until recently attracted much civil society criticism. Western donors seem very keen to re-engage Harare despite the volatile human rights situation. In February 2013 we had four years of the 'Inclusive (or Unified) Government' (IG/GNU) following the signing in September 2008 of the 'Global Political Agreement' (GPA) between the former sole ruling party ZANU-PF and its challengers, the two factions of the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC). Many activists see that ZANU-PF has used the space of the GPA better to consolidate its previously shaky rule, even if its support base is low. Its control of the major organisations of state with the exception of the Ministry of Finance remains firm especially with the additional, largely undeclared revenues from the diamond mines. Its ideological stance of indigenisation, sovereignty and empowerment is at least clearly understood while that of the MDC is unclear, including its Jobs, Upliftment, Capital Investment and Ecology (JUICE) programme for growth. It remains susceptible to the charge repeated endlessly by its coalition 'partner' and the state-controlled media of being Western puppets. There is, however, an alternative scenario that both MDC-T leader Morgan Tsvangirai and President Mugabe fear more the enemy within (that is, in their own parties) than that without. This might lead to possible realignments according to some. While some are sceptical about this, proponents point out that no-one is posing a way to unlock the process whereby a yes vote leads to the elections with little having changed and the supposedly democratic elements of the constitution have had no chance to bed in. The alternative therefore is an elite pact avoiding ructions within the parties giving that few actually really want elections anyway. …

1. Introduction On 14 and 17 November 2009 approximately 3 000 foreigners (mostly Zimbabweans) were chased from their homes in the town of De Doorns in the Western Cape, South Africa. Their homes were looted and burned. Up until the further outbreak of xenophobia in April 2015, those xenophobic attacks of 2009 had been the most extensive of their kind since May 2008, when 62 people were reportedly killed and over 100 000 people displaced throughout South Africa (Monson and Arian 2011: 26). In the light of the April 2015 attacks on foreigners in the cities of Durban and Johannesburg, which left at least seven dead, closer scrutiny of the underlying causes and instigators of the De Doorns case provides some understanding of the persistence of xenophobia in South Africa. This article looks into the explanations for the xenophobic events in De Doorns. The research includes reviewing reports of the case as well as key informant interviews. Particular focus has been given to the report of Jean Pierre Misago (2009) from the Forced Migration Studies Programme, namely Violence, labour and the displacement of Zimbabweans in De Doorns. Interviews were conducted with a local farmers' organisation, namely, the Hex River Valley Table Grape Association (HTA); (1)) a provincial farmers' organisation, namely Agri Western Cape; (2)) and a human rights organisation, People Against Suffering Oppression and Poverty (PASSOP). (3)) The research was guided by the theory of ethnic violence as presented by Donald Horowitz (2001) and Jean Pierre Misago's (2011) explanation based on "the micro-politics of violence", which focuses on the role of local politicians in cases of xenophobia. 2. Explanations for xenophobia Horowitz (2001: 8), a leading academic in ethnic conflicts, developed a theory of ethnic violence; such violence is termed ethnic in that it "is not directed against a regime but against members of other groups". The outbreak of an ethnic riot thus provides clues to the nature of group relations; it is the "acting out of ethnic-group sentiments" (Horowitz 2001: 14). Although such riots are concentrated in time and space, and tend to be episodic, the event is still characterised as being a purposive and organised activity. The aim of the violence is to do physical harm to members of a specific group and their property. There is therefore a combination of rational-purposive behaviour with irrational brutal behaviour; a "fusion of coherence and frenzy" (Horowitz 2001: 13-14). In the case of De Doorns, the target group was clearly the Zimbabwean migrants who had moved into the area in search of employment on the local farms. Although no Zimbabweans were killed during the events of 14 and 17 November 2009, they were threatened with violence and their homes were looted and destroyed by the local communities. Horowitz (2001: 71-123) argues that external contextual causes in addition to immediate locality-bound causes need to be considered when looking at such violent outbursts. Locality-bound causes imply that local and short-term issues are involved and therefore also explain the spontaneity and the deep-seated emotions associated with outbreaks of violence. According to this theory, violence against foreigners would emerge under very specific structural conditions. It is likely to flare up where there is little fear that the police will protect the victims; in other words, police ineffectiveness or bias works in favour of the perpetrators of violence. In this context of impunity, the authorities implicitly condone the actions of the perpetrators, the police do not act against them, and the perpetrators do not fear reprisals from the targets of the violence. Horowitz (2001: 17-23; 72-73) also explains who is likely to conduct a riot and how this will develop. A lethal ethnic riot, which is how some have described the similar May 2008 xenophobic attacks (Bekker 2010), entails assaults by one ethnic group on another. …

In recent years, there has been an increasing interest in digital vigilance as a new deviant phenomenon of Internet communication. Rapid changes in communication are having a severe effect on citizens’ perception of digital public space. Why do citizens allow themselves more free and even aggressive behavior online? Does this type of communication (via computer, smartphone, etc.) create the illusion of a private space instead of a public one? Does the practice of using fictitious names and avatars create an illusion of impunity? Causal factors leading to digital vigilance remain speculative. Using content analysis of posts and comments on social media, in this paper, we investigate communication strategies of Russian digital vigilantes such as “Lev Protiv” and “StopHam.” The findings suggest that social media get benefit from viral bursts of online engagement after controversial, scandalous campaigns, which means that they can tolerate or even cultivate such activity.

Rather than having a frontal approach toward animality or reflecting on the animal as such, Esposito introduces this problematic as an element that traditional metaphysics has not been able to properly reflect upon. Esposito’s philosophy suggests that if we want to leave behind an immunitarian politics over life that has produced submission, suffering, and senseless death of human beings, animality should not be thought anymore as what can be destroyed with impunity, nor as that part of humanity that must be rejected and controlled by our higher spiritual and mental abilities. Esposito shows that it is only by establishing a new political and philosophical framing of existence, in which animality and humanness cannot be severed, that a politics of life can be thought and experienced.

We examine the meaning of shared video work and shared writing in its epistemic dimension. Our reflections are based on our own experiences of working on the video Acteal. Ten years of impunity. How many more? produced by the communications department of the Civil Society Organisation ‘The Bees of Acteal’ in Chiapas, Mexico. We interpret the shared work in this production as an act of epistemic solidarity that contributes to the process of First Nations or First Peoples “sowing and growing” their own media at the margins of capitalist logic. We thus emphasise the appropriation of video as a technology of knowledge that can reinforce the oral and visual traditions of First Nations in their epistemic and aesthetic dimensions. We exemplify how The Bees have used video as a media strategy in their struggle for justice and peace and conclude that shared video work and shared writing are complementary strategies for an “ecology of knowledge” (Santos 2010) through epistemic solidarity.

How to construct an ethnography about such a phenomenon as “the mafia,” shrouded in silence? What methods might anthropologists use to investigate silence and understand the denied, the unspeakable, the implicit, and the unspoken? The ethnographer can begin by indexing the conjectures and speculations surrounding this mysterious entity, describing the social, judicial, or graphic acts made in the attempt to break up the silence in and around this secret phenomenon, and exposing the manifold issues at stake regarding its indeterminacy: impunity, invisibility, unrepresentability. The methodological assumption is that “the mafia” is not a social fact fixed once and for all, available for being studied or “exposed,” but a cognitive event shaped by silence. In the process of producing an ethnography of what has been said or written on this secret and uncertain phenomenon, one comes to realize the imaginative power of silence, giving consistency to special kinds of social facts which draw substance from their indeterminacy. Hence, the need to coin a neologism, mafiacraft , which I discuss as an inverted paradigm of witchcraft: while the latter emphasizes the power of words, the former highlights the strength of silence: how does it resist, fight, or capitulate to the strength of words or to the force of law?

[After conflict-related sexual violence,] the anger and shame left behind can tear communities apart and make wars last longer-especially when the monsters who do it are allowed to get away with it... But it doesn't have to be this way. Rape and sexual violence are the worst crimes you can imagine, but they are not an inevitable part of war. It's time to act, to end sexual violence in conflict. Time to act, to bring those responsible to justice (Foreign and Commonwealth Office 2014a).In June 2014, the UK government hosted the high-level Global Summit to End Sexual Violence in Conflict, reported as "the largest gathering ever brought together on the subject."1 It culminated in unanimous agreement among state delegates to "tackle impunity for the use of rape as a weapon of war," (Gov.uk 2014) and a best practices protocol on how to document and investigate sexual violence in conflict-situations to promote accountability (Foreign and Commonwealth Office 2014b). The quote that introduces this article is from the voiceover of a campaign video released by the UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office as part of that summit. Over the screams of women and roars of animated monsters/brutes/men, the female voice talks about the wide-ranging and devastating consequences of "the worst crimes you can imagine"-before she presents what needs to be done to end conflict-related sexual violence: End impunity. In many ways, this campaign video epitomizes the subject matter of this article: Through political, activist, and legal campaigning during the last two decades, the fight against conflict-related sexual violence has become the fight against impunity. That is not a small change. Until fairly recently, criminal prosecution of conflict-related sexual violence was practically unheard of. Today, criminal prosecution has become the framework within which all matters to do with conflict-related sexual violence are dealt with. As the current UN Secretary General's Special Representative on Sexual Violence in Conflict, Zainab Bangura (2013), has emphasized, "[t]here's no way to end sexual violence unless you end impunity." From being silenced in hard politics circles, rendered unavoidable, and seen as a natural side effect of war through most of history, conflict-related sexual violence has reached the highest echelons of international attention in recent years.Whereas much has been written about the development of an international legal doctrine on conflict-related sexual violence (Copelon 2000; de Brouwer 2005; Halley 2008), critical approaches to international criminal law generally (Drumbl 2007; Tallgren 2002) have yet to merge with thematic scholarship on conflictrelated sexual violence. As a result, and albeit criticisms of case law development and prosecutorial strategies exist (Bergsmo 2012; Henry 2011), there have been few attempts to analytically reflect on the recent rise of criminal law as the utmost solution to the challenge that conflict-related sexual violence is. As Engle (2005: 784) commented more than a decade ago, "as criminalization of wartime rape marches forward ... there has been little reflection ... on whether more criminalization is necessarily better than less."This article continues the scholarly conversation about conflict-related sexual violence and its emergence as a "hot topic" on academic, legal, political, and activist agendas (Grewal 2015; Henry 2014). In so doing, it connects with constructivist approaches in international relations theory that stress the constitutive role of human rights norms (Adler 1997; Risse, Sikkink, and Ropp 2013; Wendt 1999). Much of this research has been concerned with the emergence, diffusion, and internalization of norms, including the role of nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) in the development of the "justice cascade"-that is the "shift in the legitimacy of the norm of individual criminal accountability for human rights violations and an increase in criminal prosecutions on behalf of that norm" (Sikkink 2011: 5; see also Glasius 2006; Haddad 2011; Lohne forthcoming). …

Purpose This paper aims to highlight the shift of impunity from institutions to individuals within the “too big to fail, too big to jail” paradigm and to restore individual liability in the financial industry. Design/methodology/approach The paper is based on the analysis of HSBC deferred prosecution agreement concluded on December 10, 2012 and of a report by the US House of Representatives Financial Committee released in July 2016. Findings “Too big to fail, too big to jail” is a paradigm which contains justice. It leads to the impunity of individuals involved due to the absence of trial. Containment of justice is denial of justice. However, the systemic risk is attached to institutions, not to individuals. Therefore, it should not hamper the prosecution of individuals. Practical implications Setting sanctions applicable to individuals and proportionate to the crime would contribute to deter financial misconducts. Originality/value The value of the paper is the demonstration that there is no basis for a limited personal liability in the financial industry.

This article offers an interpretation of transitional justice policies – the efforts of post-conflict and post-dictatorship societies to address the legacy of past abuses – as a form of social control. While transitional justice is commonly conceptualized as responding to a core problem of impunity, this article argues that such formulation is too narrow and leads to lack of coherence in the analysis of the diverse array of transitional mechanisms, which include among others trials, truth commissions, reparations for victims and apologies. Building on the work of Stanley Cohen, the article contends that the core transitional problem is the denial of human rights violations, and consequently that the common purpose of all transitional justice mechanisms is to reclassify the past: redefining as deviant some acts and individuals which prior to the transition were considered ‘normal’. The article identifies and analyses three themes in the application of a social control framework to transitional justice: (1) truth, memory and retroactive social control, pertains to the way truth-seeking transitional justice mechanisms reclassify past events by engaging in social control of and through memory; (2) censure, celebration and transitional social control refers to the reclassification of categories of individuals through expressions of both social disapproval and praise; and (3) civil society and social control from below concerns the role of social movements, organizations and groups as informal agents of social control during transitions. The concluding section recaps and briefly explores the concept of ‘good moral panic’ in the context of political transitions. While the concept of social control tends to have negative connotations for critical sociologists, this work suggests that efforts to categorize, punish and disapprove certain behaviours as deviant may not only be viewed as supporting a conservative status-quo, but also as promoting fledging human rights norms.

Increasing exclusion and inequality in Honduras have posed escalating security risks for women in their homes and on the streets. In this article, we examine gender-based violence against women, including gender-motivated murders (feminicides), the everyday acts that can result in their deaths, and impunity for these crimes. Rather than analyzing these murders as interpersonal acts or linking them to economic deprivation, we examine the actions and inactions of the state that have amplified violence in the lives of Honduran women. We distinguish between the state’s acts of omission and acts of commission in order to identify the political responsibility and failures that create a fertile ground for these killings. A context of multisided violence that facilitates extreme violence in the lives of women is present in Honduras, especially considering the diminishing power of civil society groups and increased political repression after the 2009 coup. We identify root causes of the wide (and widening) gap between laws on the books—which have been passed mostly to satisfy international and domestic organizations pushing for change—and laws in action, that is, implementation on the ground. Although we focus on Honduras, we note similar experiences of extreme violence in Guatemala, El Salvador, and in other countries in the Latin American region.

The resource debate is easily discerned as part of the ongoing history of farmer–herdsman conflict in the North Central region of Nigeria. Scarcity theorists are adept at linking scarcity with the onset of livelihood conflict while on the other hand resource abundance pundits insist it is profusion and not scarcity that impels conflict. This article traverses these wrangles and proceeds to downplay the resource polemic altogether. It is proposed that the resource debate, despite its profoundness, presents a narrow reading of farmer–herdsman clashes in Nigeria’s North Central region. It is suggested that a number of other factors, including elite land grabbing, ethno-religious identity construction, weak state capabilities, the citizenship question, corrupt traditional institutions, the lack of an effective land tenure system and a widespread culture of impunity, make for better readings of the conflict. Owing to the negative impacts of the conflict on state and society, it is recommended that the ...

This article presents Joyce E. King’s 2015 AERA presidential address, which artfully combined scholarly discourse with performance elements and diverse voices in several multimedia formats. In discussing morally engaged research/ers dismantling epistemological nihilation, the article advances the argument that the moral stance, solidarity with racial/cultural dignity in education praxis, policy, and research, is needed to combat discursive forms of racism. The lecture opened with African Americans and Native Americans performing culturally affirming traditional ritual practices. An African drum processional and a libation honored revered Black ancestors—scholars, artists, and activist intellectuals—Maya Angelou, Ruby Dee, Amiri Baraka, Vincent Harding, and Asa G. Hilliard, III (Nana Baffour Amankwatia II). An intergenerational Native American delegation offered a traditional welcome prayer, gifting of tobacco, and ceremonial drumming and dance performance. Dr. King began her address by acknowledging that the 2015 AERA annual meeting was taking place in the ancestral lands of the Pottawatomie Nation.

The article examines the tenure of Harold Washington, Chicago’s first black mayor, and his relationship to the Chicago Police Department (CPD). It suggests that while police accountability had been a long-standing goal of Washington and his allies, he failed to sufficiently address the impunity of the CPD once elected. From the outset, the Washington administration exemplified this contradiction by appointing the police department’s first black superintendent, but one who would leave in place a failed structure of a police accountability that made it possible to cover up an ongoing pattern of police torture and coerced confessions. These cases of police torture throw into relief the obstacles faced by this first generation of black mayors who attempted to uproot the institutional underpinnings of police impunity amid the emergence of mass incarceration.

Silence may play different roles during post-authoritarian and transitional periods: in Spain, it has been a key element for impunity. Silence was twice imposed to victims: first, after the end of the civil war and during dictatorship, silence was a survival strategy to Franco’s repressive machinery; later, during the democratic transition, silence was said to be the price to pay for reconciliation and democracy. While the victims on Franco’s side had reparation, Franco’s victims did not –in fact thousands of them still remain buried in unmarked mass graves. Any attempts to pursue justice through the Spanish judiciary have been unsuccessful, including the resort to the ECtHR. This paper analyses the ways in which silence was imposed and the instrumental role the repression and its normative regime had on it, and in turn the impact of silence on justice. In this context, the role of silence goes beyond impacting the individual trauma and shaping a national memory but also makes victims unwillingly give up their right to justice. This article contends that, when imposed (explicit or implicitly) silence results in impunity and courts should take this into consideration when determining victims’ effective capacity to claim their rights in judicial fora.

The rise of Islamic State (IS) has fundamentally altered the conception of terrorism, a development which international criminal law is arguably unprepared for. Given the scale and gravity of the group’s crimes, questions abound as to how those responsible will be held accountable. In the absence of significant domestic prosecutions and short of the establishment of a dedicated accountability mechanism, the International Criminal Court (ICC) stands as the forum of last resort in which IS members could stand trial. Such a proposition is not without significant challenges, however. This article addresses some key issues facing any potential prosecutions from the perspective of: (i) jurisdiction; (ii) applicable crimes; and (iii) modes of liability. First, as Syria, Iraq, and Libya are not States Parties to the Rome Statute, the available avenues for asserting jurisdiction will be assessed, namely: a Security Council referral; jurisdiction over so called ‘foreign fighters’ who are State Party nationals; and jurisdiction over attacks on the territory of a State Party and whether they could be considered part of a broader series of criminal acts in IS held territory. Second, as there is no crime of terrorism in the Rome Statute, the question of prosecuting acts encapsulated in a systematic campaign of terror through existing provisions will be assessed. Third, the regime of accountability at the ICC will be analysed in light of IS’s purported structure and the crimes with which it stands accused. Focus will be directed to those responsible for the propagation of genocidal propaganda and individuals who provide aid or assistance to IS which contributes to its crimes. These questions are far from theoretical. The UN has designated IS a threat to international peace and security. There follows an expectation that international criminal law should play a role in tackling one of the major criminal concerns of our time and ensure that impunity for those responsible for IS’s atrocities is avoided.

Applying both constructivism and the English school of international relations, the icc is shown to be founded upon, and simultaneously constitutive of, a vision of universally shared humanity. However, the icc performs this role of norm-entrepreneurship within a structure premised upon Westphalian notions of sovereignty that are not conducive to this vision. This tension is embedded within the Rome Statute due to compromises struck in its drafting between those actors who envisioned a solidarist ‘world community’, and those attached to the status quo of an ‘international society’. These compromises have given rise to power relations that undermine the vision of ending impunity for international crimes. Consequently, it is not simply by one’s conduct that they come before the Court as a hostis humani generis, but rather because they have no powerful friends left. The efficacy of the icc is contingent on this transition between two competing conceptions of international society.

Since the anti-Muslim violence in Gujarat, India, in 2002, NGOs, activists, and survivors have relied on India's criminal-justice system to hold Hindu perpetrators accountable. But lower courts in the city of Ahmedabad effectively immunized perpetrators from prosecution. This impunity effect, which allows public, even spectacular violence to go unpunished, is produced by three interrelated techniques: documentation, temporality, and proceduralism. These forms of legality allow postcolonial regimes to inscribe, frame, and repackage exceptional violence against minorities to reinforce and deepen a form of state power based on the explicit subordination of minorities. The Gujarat case reveals a distinctive style of postcolonial state formation, one that is based on the ability of a range of actors, state and nonstate, to reconcile majoritarian rule with everyday legality. [ethnic and religious violence, impunity, legality, majoritarian rule, state, Gujarat, India]

Many African countries gained political independence in the 1960s. This era of independence came with promises and great expectations of economic, political and social development. Fifty years later, it is certain that the promises and expectations of independence have not been easily realised. Perennial violent conflicts have continued to ravage many countries in Africa, causing the catastrophic breakdown of law and order. Therefore, one of the major issues in conflict resolution discourse in Africa is how to develop functional mechanisms for the prevention of violent conflicts. This article examines the capacity of the International Criminal Court (ICC) to act as a mechanism for conflict prevention in Africa. Notwithstanding the doubts and uncertainties associated with the impact of law on conflict transformation, this article argues in the main that the ICC contributes to conflict prevention in Africa by expressing global norms of international law, challenging the culture of impunity in some c...

Sintetizo aquí, el estudio de la movilización social frente a la violencia en México durante el último lustro (2010-2015), periodo en el que se intensificó la conflictividad social y política asociada al narcotráfico, la corrupción y la impunidad. Metodológicamente, identifico los sujetos organizados, sus repertorios de denuncia y oposición a los episodios de violencia, y los mensajes de demanda y propuesta colectiva frente a los mismos. Como aporte teórico ahondo en el examen de elementos emergentes en la configuración de la acción colectiva –tales como la decisión y las luchas por el reconocimiento–, a partir de los cuales, debato acerca del significado político civilista, crítico y restaurador de la vida en común de este tipo de prácticas colectivas. I summarize here, the study of social mobilization against violence in Mexico during the last five years (2010-2015), a period in which the social and political unrest associated with drug trafficking, corruption and impunity intensified. Methodologically, I identify organized subjects, their repertoires of denunciation and opposition to the violence, and messages on demand and collective proposal against them. I deepened into theoretical contribution in shaping collective action; such as, the decision and the struggles for recognition, from which, I discuss about a critic, a civic attitud, a political significance, and restorer of the common life, of this type of collective practices.

The ongoing debate on the ICC’s selective application of international criminal law targeting Africans has had negative implications on the international court and the law it applies. As a consequence of the political rhetoric that the ICC targets Africa, African leaders and their sympathisers have tended to view the court with contempt and some have expressed intentions to withdraw their membership of the court. Against this background, this paper examines the argument that the ICC targets Africa which amounts to an affront to international criminal law and its objective to end impunity to achieve international justice. The conclusion drawn from this study is that the assertion that the ICC targets Africa is a mere political rhetoric that warrants demystification. It is a political rhetoric advanced by African leaders to manipulate their way out of the responsibility to be accountable to international criminal law. Furthermore, the notion that the court targets Africans lacks substantive credibility as it ignores several structural and technical underpinnings such as the jurisdictional triggers, the role of the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) and other functional modalities that guide the operation of the court. Data for this paper were gathered from journal articles, organisational reports and documents, newspapers, case reports, treaties and other online sources.

Each year undergraduate archaeology students can choose from hundreds of field schools, where they learn hands-on skills such as excavation. Field schools are required to enter graduate school in archaeology or to land a job in the discipline. But information passed privately in archaeology9s whisper networks reveals some field schools have a reputation for faculty who sexually harass with impunity. Many are also famed for heavy drinking. And nearly all of them cost students thousands of dollars, keeping those of modest means out of archaeology altogether. Now, some archaeologists are trying to change the script. With the help of a National Science Foundation grant, a group is studying, and plans to implement, best practices for preventing sexual harassment at field schools. Others are rethinking the whole model: They teach field skills at local sites during the regular semester.

El presente trabajo se inserta en los debates acerca del lugar que ocupan las emociones y sentimientos en la constitución y permanencia de la acción colectiva, entendiéndolos como resultado de construcciones socioculturales, cuyo abordaje permite comprender de manera más compleja diversos fenómenos sociopolíticos. El objetivo es analizar los sentidos, emociones y sentimientos que se construyen entre los militantes de la agrupación H.I.J.O.S. a partir de la participación en el Espacio de memoria ExESMA, en relación con el propio espacio, la agrupación y sus integrantes, como también hacia las autoridades del Gobierno Nacional entre los años 2003 y 2015. Desde una metodología cualitativa, se priorizará la perspectiva de los actores a partir de testimonios recuperados de fuentes primarias y secundarias. Mediante el análisis de esta experiencia se dará cuenta de cómo sentimientos como la injusticia, la impunidad y el dolor son procesados y transformados colectivamente a partir de la organización, a la par que se redefine su vinculación con el Estado. The present work is inserted in the debates about the place that the emotions and feelings take in the constitution and lastingness of the collective action, understanding them as result of sociocultural constructions, whose approach allows to understand in a more complex way diverse sociopolitical phenomena.The objective is to analyze the senses, emotions and feelings that are constructed between the militants of the group H.I.J.O.S. from the participation in the Memory Space ExESMA, in relation with the own space, the group and its members, as also towards the authorities of the National Government between 2003 and 2015. From a qualitative methodology, the perspective of the actors will be prioritized from testimonies recovered from primary and secondary sources. Through the analysis of this experience, it will become clear how feelings such as injustice, impunity and pain are collectively processed and transformed from the organization, while at the same time redefining its link with the State. O trabalho apresentado é localizado entre os debates sobre o lugar que têm as emoções, e sentimentos na constituição e permanência da ação coletiva, entendendo-os como resultado de construções socioculturais, cuja abordagem permite compreender de uma maneira complexa diversos fenômenos sócio-políticos. O objetivo é analisar os sentidos, emoções e sentimentos que são construídos entre os militantes do agrupamento H.I.J.O.S. desde a participação no Espaço da Memória ExESMA, em relação ao próprio espaço, ao agrupamento e seus membros, bem como às autoridades do Governo Nacional, entre 2003 e 2015. Baseado em uma metodologia qualitativa, vai se priorizar a perspectiva dos atores partindo de depoimentos recuperados de fontes primárias e secundárias. Através da análise desta experiência, vai se dar conta de como os sentimentos como a injustiça. a impunidade e a dor, são coletivamente processados e transformados desde a organização, enquanto a sua ligação ao Estado é redefinida.

Drawing from a one-year ethnographic study, this Chapter shows how rehabilitation and reintegration processes of former child soldiers in Northern Uganda have been influenced by the Paris Principles. Within this legal framework, returnee children were presented as innocent traumatised victims. This Chapter argues that circumstances in which the Lord’s Resistance Army forcibly recruited and conscripted abducted children in armed rebellion significantly affected their behaviour. Applying the Paris Principles in the rehabilitation and reintegration of former child soldiers proved to be problematic since Acholi people did not readily accept the notions of former child soldiers’ innocence, passivity, implied impunity and traumatisation. This led to the rejection and stigmatisation of returnees which, in turn, imperilled reintegration processes. This Chapter urges that the Paris Principles be rescripted to acknowledge children’s agency and victimhood and also to consider the community’s need for justice after war.

Las redes sociales plantean para los menores tanto situaciones de riesgo como respuestas positivas hacia su empoderamiento. El fenómeno social de la sexualización infantil, ya rechazado para las mujeres –por las connotaciones de discriminación, rol pasivo y tolerancia a la violencia–, se ha generalizado en Internet con aparente impunidad por parte de las marcas y medios que reproducen esas imágenes y débil concienciación entre las niñas y los padres que las publican en redes sociales. Ante la llamada de reguladores, padres e investigadores para proteger los derechos de la infancia, los objetivos de esta investigación son conocer el estado de la cuestión sobre la sexualización de la infancia en el entorno digital y recoger algunas propuestas de alfabetización mediática. La metodología utilizada ha sido la revisión de la literatura sobre sexualización, publicidad digital, comercialización de la infancia e infancia y moda en las bases de datos de revistas académicas y bibliotecas universitarias. Las conclusiones arrojan la necesaria contribución de prescriptores de opinión, medios, padres, educadores y anunciantes para evitar reducir la sexualidad a la sexualización y tomar conciencia del impacto de las imágenes comerciales que pueden generar conductas de riesgo. info:eu-repo/semantics/acceptedVersion

“Nosotras. Territorio que habla” es la materialización creativa de la necesidad de denunciar, de testimoniar, de reflexionar desde la propia voz de tres madres, Luz Marina Bernal, María Ubilerma Sanabria y Lucero Carmona, cuyos hijos fueron ejecutados por el ejército colombiano entre el 2007 y el 2008. En este libro ellas comparten su experiencia de tantos años de injusticia. El relato de tan cruento capítulo en la historia de la violencia de un país, lo contamos a través del archivo personal de estas mujeres, de la necesidad de saber y de reclamar justicia, de la investigación, la denuncia, el posicionamiento político y el análisis común. Queremos compartir cómo está siendo esta experiencia, desde esa corpo-política de estas tres madres cuyas narrativas indagan y se preguntan sobre la violencia y la impunidad. Para ello proponemos tres epígrafes que pretenden ofrecer algunas respuestas a (1) cómo se tomó la decisión de escribir juntas un libro; (2) cómo está siendo este proceso y (3) para qué hacemos lo que hacemos o el porqué de relacionarnos de otra manera.

In recent years, Punjab has witnessed significant political mobilisation of small-marginal peasants and agricultural labour in several parts of the state. The participation and leadership of Dalit women in these mobilisations is even more noteworthy. Punjab has been a centre of peasant struggles but these have been in the past the bastion of male farmers. Today this is changing in a significant way. In the recent agrarian mobilisations in Punjab, women, landless Dalit and marginalised farmers have been an integral part. These mobilisations are around issues of the rights of Dalits over village commons, their right to live in the villages even when the distribution of resources is such that it leaves them no ownership of the land they live on and till, the recognition that Punjab's agrarian crisis – evident in the suicides of peasants – is being borne also by the landless and, above all for ending impunity for sexual violence which women, and Dalit women in particular, endure as caste and patriarchal oppre...

Private military and security companies (PMSCs) play a growing role in international military and peacekeeping operations. Very little is known, however, about the fact that not only the United States relies extensively on contractors, but so do international organizations such as the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). This article examines NATO's collaboration with PMSCs during its leadership of the International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan (ISAF, 2001-2014). It argues that NATO's use of international prime contractors and holding PMSCs responsible for their own security contributed to the creation of a complex network of contractors and subcontractors with detrimental effects for control and accountability. In particular, this article focuses on the proliferation of local Armed Private Security Companies (APSCs) which were accused of a wide range of humanitarian and human rights abuses. Drawing on principal-agent theory, this article seeks to explain why NATO appeared unable to stop the 'culture of impunity' among these firms. It shows that multiple principals and long principal-agent chains undermined NATO oversight over armed security guards. In addition, some principals and agents avoided accountability for APSC misconduct through three strategies: blame-shifting, back-scratching and morphing. NATO contracting practices, thus, had serious negative implications for the security of the civilian population and the ability of ISAF to establish lasting peace in Afghanistan. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Elections in Nigeria are usually ferociously contested. Thus the risks of violence are always high, particularly for the electorate. Violence becomes such a seeming permanent feature of political competition in the country that electioneering is seen as the equivalent of war and political gladiators as combatants. The intervention of public security forces to enforce sanity in the process appears counterproductive because of their level of partisanship. The voters become victims in such circumstances such that they are precariously hooked in between the choice of endangering their lives in a country riddled with impunity or exercising their voting rights for good governance and a better future. The essay argues that as much as the relevance of security forces in electioneering may not be underestimated, their presence often undermines the process, fueling an atmosphere of violence. The article submits that a more civil approach/strategy should be factored into their operations with a view to ensur...

This study is an exploration of the use of technology-mediated interventions by the Zimbabwe Peace Project (ZPP) in checkmating the country’s insidious culture of political violence and impunity. It disentangles the ZPP’s strategies and the composite reactions they triggered from state functionaries and the aligned security apparatus. The ZPP exploited and deployed an Internet-circulated monthly newsletter, bulk short message service (SMS) alerts, smartphones, radio and Facebook to shine a spotlight on injustice. It is argued that the ZPP’s whistle-blowing strategies used against human rights violators were not necessarily intended to secure immediate perpetrator conviction; rather, they were a partial but exigent attempt at using perpetrator exposure to reveal extralegal activities and checkmate the country’s culture of impunity. The ZPP’s cybernetic naming and shaming strategies embarrassed some offenders, as evidenced by the intelligence operatives and the police’s constant harassment and arres...

Black Lives Matter was first articulated just a few years ago, but it has been the leitmotif of antiracist struggles for generations. The Movement for Black Lives extends the work of previous movements that challenged forms of oppression that act on Black bodies with impunity. It should be understood in the context of Ida B. Wells’ anti-lynching campaign, Fannie Lou Hamer’s reproductive justice demands, and the Black Panther Party’s health activism. The 50th anniversary of the Black Panther Party is an occasion to recall that its work confronted the callous neglect and the corporeal surveillance and abuse of poor Black communities. Similar demands have been the centrifugal force of social movements that for centuries have refused to have Black lives cast beyond the human boundary.