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Course Catalog
Reparations, Reconciliation and Restorative Justice Seminar (3)
This course (formerly taught as Reparations, Reconciliation and Restorative Justice Seminar: Special Topic) will explore the 20th and 21st century efforts of individuals, groups and countries to rebuild and repair after systematic racial/ethnic discrimination, terrorism or genocide. Although we will look at and draw on a number of instances of racial and ethnic terrorism both in the U.S. and abroad, and on national and international responses to these acts, we will focus principally on three of the most recent and well-known efforts to address racial/ethnic discrimination, terrorism and genocide in the 20th century: the internment of Japanese Americans during the Second World War; the system of apartheid in South Africa; and the mass killing of ethnic Tutsis in Rwanda. We will also draw on legal and quasi-legal responses to the Holocaust, and genocide in the former Yugoslavia. In exploring these instances of racial/ethnic discrimination and terrorism, we will look at how formal international and state-based legal systems address or fail to address the complex questions of justice, punishment, truth-telling, and reparation. Indeed the central focus of the course will be to examine the limitations of formal international and state legal systems to address these important issues. In so doing, we will study emerging quasi-legal and non-legal techniques that have been and are increasingly being utilized to address conflicts of this sort in communities throughout the world. These mechanisms focus principally on truth-telling, reconciliation and reparation. Captured under the heading “restorative justice” the techniques we will examine include among others, truth commissions, legislative resolutions, healing circles, community conferencing and gaccaca tribunals. The course will conclude with the application of the ideas explored during the semester to the recently filed litigation seeking reparations for slavery and racial terrorism in the United States. Written work completed for this seminar may be used to satisfy the Advanced Writing Requirement. Students who previously took Reparations, Reconciliation and Restorative Justice Seminar: Special Topic may not register for this course.
Current & Previous Instructors:
Sherrilyn Ifill;
| 531K (CRN: 25176) Credits: 3 Ifill. Spring, 2010 (Day). Wed: 2:10-4:10 Room 402. 0 openings. (Limit 15). |
Key to Codes in Course Descriptions
P: PrerequisiteC: Prerequisite or Concurrent Requirement
R: Recommended Prior or Concurrent Course
