Plenaries
June 6 th, 2022
June 6 th, 2022
VICTIMS OF INTERNATIONAL CRIMES THROUGH WAR IN UKRAINE HUMAN RIGHTS DISCOURSES.
June 6 th, 2022
Viacheslav Tuliakov. Chair of Criminal Law in Odesa, Ukraine
Presented/introduced by José Luis de la Cuesta y Adán Nieto
Biography: Professor Viacheslav Tuliakov, Dr. of Law, National University «Odesa Law Academy» vice rector (Ukraine), European Court of Human Rights, ad hoc judge for the cases against Ukraine. Corresponding member of National Academy of Legal Science of Ukraine. Lecturer/Visiting Professor/Scholar in foreign Law schools and international programs (HEUNI, NIJ, USAID, TEMPUS, ERASMUS). Lectures and classes on International Law, European criminal law, Crime prevention, Legal Methodology, Human Rights, Victims` protection, Public Law and Protection of Human Rights. Authoring more than 250 works on Ukrainian legal doctrine, criminal policy and criminal justice, philosophy of criminal law and criminal justice, victims’ rights protection and victimology. His doctorate thesis «Crime victim theory fundamentals» was the first monograph issue on the grounds of victimology in Ukraine».
Abstract: Being the author of UA Presidential Decree on the rights of victims of crime of 28.12.2004 and the first LLD on victimology in Ukraine, and now a refugee, the speaker will discuss the problems of victims of aggression against Ukraine, considering direct victimisation and the rights to compensate and redress in international criminal law. Moreover, secondary victimisation through psychological impact and violations of art 2, 3, 8 of ECHR and tertiary victimization in Ukrainian and Russian society in contradiction with art 6-13 of ECHR will be addressed.
June 6 th, 2022
Asher Flynn
Criminology, School of Social Sciences
Monash University
BEYOND VULNERABILITY: RE-CONCEIVING VICTIMS AS CITIZENS
June 6 th, 2022
Robyn Holder. Senior Research Fellow, Griffith Criminology Institute, Griffith University, Australia
Biography: Dr Robyn Holder is a socio-legal researcher who examines the interface between systems of justice and those who have experienced victimisation and injustice, and the mediating role of rights, especially human rights. Robyn is co-convenor, with Dr Nieke Elbers at the NSCR (Netherlands Institute for the Study of Crime and Law Enforcement), of a Law and Society Association International Research Collaboration that brings together early and mid-career scholars researching victims, citizenship, and justice. Her current projects include an investigation of practitioners adaption of investigative interview protocols, and another which explores accountability mechanisms of criminal justice decision-makers. Robyn continues to build on her Griffith Postdoctoral Fellowship examining the role of advocacy for victims in international criminal tribunals and its transferability to domestic jurisdictions. Contact: r.holder@griffith.edu.au
Abstract: The abstract public status of the ‘ideal victim’ has been sketched as someone weak, who is carrying out a respectable project and who is not to be blamed (Christie, 1986). This image has evolved as a portrayal of vulnerability. Clearly, individuals and groups within societies are vulnerable in different ways to crime, violence and exploitation, and to different types and forms of violation, bias and discrimination. An emphasis on vulnerability as the categorising device defining which victims receive state assistance and societal support has strengthened. In this presentation, I trace the different conceptualisations of vulnerability, the ways in which it is used, and examine some important changes in criminal justice responses to 'vulnerable victims'. However, I observe that the power to define who or what is 'vulnerable' is characterised by a narrowing of resourcing and recognition. Indeed, over the past 10-20 years, policy and legislative reform on victims’ rights in criminal justice have drifted from recognition of universal entitlements to specific offerings to 'vulnerable' groups. I develop Christie’s location of policy debates in victims' ‘public status’ to argue an alternative understanding of victims as being in a political relation to state institutions. They are citizens first whose rights and responsibilities are mutually constitutive of the state’s obligations and duties to its citizens.
June 7th, 2022
RESTORATIVE JUSTICE FOR VICTIMS OF TERRORISM: MERGING DIFFERENT PERSPECTIVES
June 7 th, 2022
Dialogue between Barbara Dührkop (Graduate in humanities of the University of Uppsala, Sweden, and former teacher) & Pili Zabala (Graduate in odontology of the University of the Basque Country and teacher)
Bárbara Dührkop (born in Hanover, Germany) was until 2009 a Member of the European Parliament, where she was a Vice-Chair of the Socialist Group. Her husband Enrique Casas was assassinated by the Comandos Autónomos Anticapitalistas (CAA), a branch of ETA. Within a longitudinal research of the Basque Institute of Criminology (University of the Basque Country) and other platforms, she has participated in several restorative justice projects. She has also participated in school programs and European initiatives to engage students in issues related to human rights of victims of terrorism.
Pili Zabala (born in Tolosa, Basque Country), former member of the Basque Parliament with Elkarrekin Podemos. The disappearance of her brother Joxi Zabala in 1983 marked her life; Joxi, an alleged member of ETA, was kidnapped, tortured and murdered by the GAL (state terrorism group). Since then, she became an activist for peace and reconciliation in the Basque Country. Within a longitudinal research of the Basque Institute of Criminology (University of the Basque Country) and other organisations, she has participated in several restorative justice and educative projects.
Moderated by Gema Varona (President of the Basque Society of Victimology)
Abstract
Departing from the current situation in the Basque Country, host of the Symposium, our key speakers will be sharing their different visions as victims on their participation in restorative justice projects developed in the Basque Country in cases of terrorism and political violence. Both have already participated in documentary films and books on the matter. Holding both a great interest in restorative justice from a victimological standpoint, they will offer us different visions about elements of justice and healing within restorative justice. In concrete, they will approach to what point can restorative justice be transformative or therapeutic, what is the meaning of apology and forgiveness in this kind of process; and what should be the role of digital memorialisation practices. By contrasting reflective views with real experiences, the complexities and different intersections of restorative justice can be further debated with the participants in the Symposium. It should be stressed that the Basque restorative projects have called the attention of different researchers and international organisations such as the European Forum for Restorative Justice, the Radicalisation Awareness Network (RAN) and the informal network Encounter on Restorative Encounters (ERC) that in 2019 gathered victims, ex-offenders and facilitators of restorative justice in cases of terrorism and political violence coming from Italy, Northern Ireland, Spain, Belgium, and Israel. Barbara Dührkop and Pili Zabala have participated in the activities of these organisations and networks.
June 8th, 2022
KEEPER OF THE WINDS: An exploration of the space between the harmed and the harmer in restorative justice encounters
June 8 th, 2022
Dr. Clair Aldington
Biography:
Dr. Clair Aldington is an artist, designer and researcher based in Scotland, UK. She is also a Restorative Justice practitioner. In the UK Clair has worked with Youth Offending Services, as a regional Creative Arts Development Worker in Youth Justice and as an Arts Development Officer. In 2008 she co-founded Space2face, which is now an independent creative restorative practices organisation (www.space2face.org) in the Shetland Islands, Scotland. As a freelance creative practitioner, Clair has made and sold her own work and delivered residencies in a prison, an immigration removal centre, women’s refuges, care homes and schools, working with regional and national organisations within the UK. She has also managed public art projects and was an artist advisor with the British Council (2015-2017). More recently she has been involved with the international restorative project, the ‘Encounter of the Encounters’. She has a MA in Contemporary Arts and Music and a PhD in Restorative Justice and Design. Her research interests are restorative justice, making and gifting in times of transition, crime and conflict, and islandness.
https://northumbria-sunderland-cdt.northumbria.ac.uk/Student-Profiles/Clair-Aldington.html
Abstract:
In this presentation Dr. Aldington will reflect on the business of the restorative justice encounter as being about the space between the harmer and the harmed. A space that is marked by the trauma and pain of victimisation yet also a space that is full of opportunity and creativity. Drawing on her practice as an artist, designer and restorative justice facilitator, she will examine these different facets of the space between through the visual metaphor of the labyrinth as a keeper of the winds (Kraft, 1986; Saward, 2016) and as a design for crime prevention. Through this she posits that visual imagery and movement are important tools for the articulation of trauma as trauma is ‘initially organised without semantic representations’ (Ataria, 2015: 1051) indicating that people’s ability to verbally articulate trauma is limited. Additionally, there is consensus that verbal language struggles to properly capture trauma (Broudehoux & Cheli, 2022; Garnsey, 2016; Simić & Volcic, 2014) and further that trauma can limit a harmed person’s ability to learn languages, create a forgetting of language or even cause a retreat into silence (Busch & McNamara, 2020). This is at variance with many current western practices of restorative justice that centre on participants possessing significant oral language competencies (Hayes, 2017; Snow & Hayes, 2013; Snow & Sanger, 2011) as the primary tools with which to express their victimisation, trauma and remorse. In contrast, the architecture of memorialisation has been articulated as a ‘non-verbal language’ (Broudehoux & Cheli, 2022: 160) and that artistic language can bring new perspectives (Varona Martínez (2017) for the irreparable.
Participants will have an opportunity during the presentation to explore a labyrinth themselves and through it to investigate the space between the harmer and the harmed and the beginning of a dialogue between different perspectives.
VICTIMS AND TRASITIONAL JUSTICE: NARRATIVE TRUTHS FROM AN INTERSECTIONAL PERSPECTIVE
June 8 th, 2022
Camilo Umaña
Research Professor of the Constitutional Law Department of the Externado University (Colombia)
Biography: Camilo Umaña is professor at the Externado University in Colombia where coordinates the Human Rights Master. He holds a PhD degree in Criminology from the University of Ottawa, Canada and a PhD degree in Sociology of Law from the University of the Basque Country. He has worked with several human rights organizations and transitional justice institutions including the Colombian Truth Commission, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights on transitional justice team, UNDP and the National Ombudsman on restorative justice.
Abstract: In a context like the Colombian one, transitional justice has adopted a restorative credential that is administered in a criminal judicial setting, which is presented as prospective, dialogical and restorative. On the other hand, the extrajudicial body of the truth commission, lacking an explicitly restorative identity, has operated with the desire to provide an interpretation of the armed conflict that builds bridges for peaceful coexistence, that explains what happened to the victims and that gives meaning to the damage that allows building a post-conflict country. The two institutions, called the special jurisdiction for peace and the commission for the clarification of the truth, derived from the recent agreement between the FARC guerrillas and the Colombian government, that seeks to respond to the rights of the victims. However, along with its implementation, Colombia is experiencing a situation of transmutation of the armed conflict where the long list of victimizations now also includes former combatants who signed the peace and in which there are at least five internal armed conflicts, more than 300 organized crime gangs exercising forms of control over the territories and an extreme reality in terms of human rights. This context presents a severe test for restorative ideas, especially in the face of its real potential to fulfill the promises it makes, to live up to the expectations it creates, to adapt in a context of minimum standards and to respond adequately to the rights of the victims as well as to guarantee a peaceful coexistence.
These concerns are woven from practical experience having participated in the truth commission as an investigator for the final report, in the office of the United Nations High Commissioner for the formation and initial implementation of the mechanisms of the comprehensive system, as an assistant to one of the delegations of victims who attended the peace negotiations in Havana and, ultimately, as a victim of the Colombian internal armed conflict that left him at 12 years of age without a father, a great human rights defender, lawyer and humanist who dedicated his life to protect the victims.
June 9th, 2022
UNDERSTANDING INTERDISCIPLINARITY AT COURT: TALKING A HOLISTIC VICTIMOLOGY IN LAW AND PSYCHOLOGY
June 9 th, 2022
Dialogue between José Luis de la Cuesta & Enrique Echeburúa
José Luis de la Cuesta
Professor of Criminal Law. University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU) Spain
Director of the Basque Institute of Criminology
Director of the Research Group GICCAS (Basque Government, IT 1372-19)
Biography: Obtained his Law Degree at Law Faculty of San Sebastián in1977, being distinguished with the Second Spanish National Prize (Law). In 1979, he equally obtained the High Diploma in Criminology at University Complutense of Madrid. He is Doctor in Law of the University of the Basque Country (1981: Extraordinary Prize of the Law Faculty). He visited several foreign institutions with a post-doctoral research purpose: in France (Université de Pau et des Pays de l'Adour), in the UK (University of Edinburgh), in Belgium (Université Catholique de Louvain), and, particularly, at the Max-Planck Institut (Freiburg, Germany, 1982-1983). Further research visits to DePaul University (Chicago, U.S.A., 1994), and to the Center for Judicial Studies & National Judicial College, University of Reno (2002) can also be underlined. He is Honorary President of the International Association of Penal Law (AIDP), after having served as President from 2004 to 2014. In 2009, he received the Euskadi Prize of Research in Social Sciences and Humanities. He has been awarded Doctorate honoris causa by three Universities: the University Alexandru Ioan Cuza (Iasi, Romania: 2011); the University of Huánuco (Peru: 2017); and the Autonomous University of Peru (Lima, Peru: 2019). He is also Honorary Member of the Basque Society of Victimology.He has published 3 individual books; 6 collective books; 128 contributions to collective books; 96 Articles in scientific reviews. His website is located a www.ehu.eus/joseluis.delacuesta
Enrique Echeburúa
Professor of Clinical Psychology. University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU), Spain.
Research Director of Clinical and Health Psychology Program at the University of the Basque Country University (UPV/EHU), Spain
June 8 th, 2022
David J Scheffer
Ambassador David J. Scheffer, Visiting Senior Fellow, Council on Foreign Relations, Clinical Professor Emeritus and Director Emeritus of the Center for International Human Rights, Northwestern University Pritzker School of Law
Biography: Enrique Echeburúa (born 1951 in San Sebastián, Spain) has been a Professor of Clinical Psychology at the University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU) since 1979. He received his B.A. in Psychology from the Complutense University of Madrid in 1973 and his Ph.D. in Psychology from the Complutense University of Madrid in 1978. He was a founder member of the Basque Institute of Criminology in 1978 and he is past president of the Basque Society of Victimology (2004-2008). He has been the director of the research team in Clinical and Health Psychology at the University of the Basque Country since 2011. His publications include more than 530 papers and book chapters, as well as 35 books, mostly in the areas of anxiety disorders, gambling disorder, sexual aggression and violence. His current research is focused on intimate partner violence (psychological treatment of victims and perpetrators) and on violence risk assessment and management, as well as on behavioral addictions. He has lectured extensively around the world and is the recipient of several awards (e.g. the Euskadi Research Prize 2017 in the field of Social Sciences and Humanities) related to research contribution. He has been a senior member of the Basque Academy of Sciences, Arts and Humanities since 2012. His website is located at www.enriqueecheburua.com. His email is enrique.echeburua@ehu.eus
Moderated by Ignacio Subijana (President of the High Court of Justice of the Basque Country)
Abstract:
Despite the calls for interdisciplinarity in victimological science and practice, the criminal justice system continues to be fragmented in many ways. Even if the Directive 2012/29/EU of the European Parliament and of the Council of 25 October 2012 establishing minimum standards on the rights, support and protection of victims of crime, in line with the UN international standards on victims’ rights, demands integral protection for victims and inter-professional coordination, the reality in many jurisdictions is that many victims keep being seen as instrumental in the criminal process causing them further secondary victimization, as the 2019 EU Fundamental Rights Agency study on victims of violent crimes has recently underlined. At the same time, there is a risk of converting the victims in pathological objects for psychological intervention by concentrating on individual victims without considering broader social and justice aspects. Concrete proposals to achieve a better collaboration among jurists and psychologists, as well as other professionals, will be discussed in order to approach a more holistic understanding of the processes of victimization and recovery, including the consideration of digital advancements.
Symposium Rapporteurs
Prof. Stephan Parmentier
Jo-Anne Wemmers