American Councils, CRRC and ARISC present the 22rd talk in the Spring 2014 Works-in-Progress Series!
Anna Dolidze, University of Western Ontario
“Beyond the Binary of Exogenous and Endogenous Transitions: The International Governance of Transitional Justice in Georgia”
Wednesday, July 23, 2014 at 6:15pm
EPF/CRRC-Georgia, Kavsadze St. 3, Tbilisi
“Democratic transitional justice is almost as old as democracy itself,” points out Jon Elster. Elster distinguishes between exogenous and endogenous transitional justice, “the process of transitional justice may be either initiated by the new regime or carried out under the supervision of foreign power.” The distinction between exogenous and endogenous transitional justice processes is now widely accepted in the transitional justice scholarship. This article has two objectives. First, it suggests that the move beyond the binary of endogenous and exogenous transitions is timely. The nuances of the relationship between external and endogenous actors are better captured as a continuum. At one end of the continuum one would place exogenous transitions, where it is the international actors that are primarily responsible for and involved in all major decisions in relation to transitional justice, including but not limited to prosecution. At the other end of the continuum would feature the processes of endogenous transitional justice, where domestic actors take major policy decisions. Many other primarily non-binding forms through which international actors play a role in endogenously originated transitions would be placed along the continuum depending upon the degree of the external actors’ participation.
Second, I support this argument by focusing on the international governance of domestically originated transitional justice processes. International organizations govern transitional justice process implemented by domestic actors through a variety of legally non-binding means, including statements and reports. By focusing on the case of EU governance of transitional justice in Georgia, this article enriches the perspectives with which transitional justice scholars analyze the activities of external actors.
Anna Dolidze is a lawyer from the Republic of Georgia and a sought-after speaker and writer on law and human rights in Caucasus and Central Eurasia. In 2004–2006 Dolidze was the President of the Georgian Young Lawyers’ Association, the leading human rights organization in Georgia. Dolidze targeted legal reform, advocated for government transparency, accountability, and criminal justice reform. Dolidze represented in court the victims of human rights abuses, including journalist Irakli Imnaishvili, “rebel judges” (four Justices of the Supreme Court that refused to resign under pressure), Anna Dolidze was a leader of the social movement to punish murderers of Sandro Girgvliani. She served on boards of a number of important organizations in Georgia, such as the Georgia Media Council, the Stakeholders Committee of the Millennium Challenge Corporation in Georgia, the Human Rights Monitoring Council of the Penitentiary and Detention Places, and the National Commission against Trafficking in Persons.
In 2013 Dolidze received a Doctorate in Law from Cornell University and was appointed Assistant Professor of Law at the University of Western Ontario.
*****
W-i-P is an ongoing academic discussion series based in Tbilisi, Georgia, that takes place at the Eurasian Partnership Foundation at Kavsadze St. 3. It is co-organized by the Caucasus Research Resource Centers (CRRC), the American Councils for International Education: ACTR/ACCELS, and the American Research Institute of the South Caucasus (ARISC). All of the talks are free and open to the public. The purpose of the W-i-P series is to provide support and productive criticism to those researching and developing academic projects pertaining the Caucasus region.
For further information, please visit www.arisc.org.
