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Human Rights in the Shadow of Colonial Violence explores the relationship between the human rights movement emerging after 1945 and the increasing violence of decolonization. Based on material previously inaccessible in the archives of the International Committee of the Red Cross and the United Nations Human Rights Commission, this comparative study uses the Mau Mau War (1952-1956) and the Algerian War (1954-1962) to examine the policies of two major imperial powers, Britain and France. Historian Fabian Klose considers the significance of declared states of emergency, counterinsurgency strategy, and the significance of humanitarian international law in both conflicts.Klose's findings from these previously confidential archives reveal the escalating violence and oppressive tactics used by the British and French military during these anticolonial conflicts in North and East Africa, where Western powers that promoted human rights in other areas of the world were opposed to the growing global acceptance of freedom, equality, self-determination, and other postwar ideals. Practices such as collective punishment, torture, and extrajudicial killings did lasting damage to international human rights efforts until the end of decolonization.Clearly argued and meticulously researched, Human Rights in the Shadow of Colonial Violence demonstrates the mutually impacting histories of international human rights and decolonization, expanding our understanding of political violence in human rights discourse.

01 02 This project examines the development of forced labor in colonial Kenya from 1912 to 1930 and the parallel normalization of communal forced labor during this time period. The colonial reinvention of traditional unpaid labor was, as the noted historian of Kenya, Robert Maxon, has stated, 'based upon a completely fallacious view of the traditional history of Kenya's people.' Even among certain ethnic groups with a nebulous tradition of communal or collective labor, the labor requirements under communal labor were frequently distorted to the point were coerced labor no longer resembled its community based origins. State manipulation of these communal obligations was, in fact, part of a more general phenomenon in Africa. Europeans in Africa made use of invented tradition to both co-opt and ideologically solidify certain Africans into positions of leadership, like chiefs, and to also redefine relationships between Europeans and Africans. Seen by the state as merely an extension of tribal duties and resurrected as another phantom of customary law, communal labor was not actually exploitation but a form of relearning. In the case of communal labor, the British in Kenya used the Native Authority Ordinance to 'invent' traditional powers that galvanized the authority of chiefs to call out the labor. Conversely, chiefs also took advantage of these 'traditional' mandates to enhance their own status. 13 02 Opolot Okia is an assistant professor of African History at Wright State University. 19 02 1) OVERDUE CONTRIBUTION: Much of the literature on Kenyan labor history is out of date; this book helps to remedy that. 2) COMPREHENSIVELY RESEARCHED: Okia pulls together extensive use of colonial and mission records with wide secondary reading on Kenya and African history more broadly. 3) IMPORTANT INSIGHTS INTO SLAVERY: Okia provocatively makes the point that unpaid labor on community-organized, government-initiated projects can basically be considered a form of slavery. 31 02 Examines the development of forced labor in colonial Kenya from 1912 to 1930 04 02 Werengeka's Anxiety Forced Labor and Colonial Development in Africa The Juridical Foundation of Government Forced Labor 'Making the Lazy Nigger Work:' European Settlers, the State and Forced Labor, 1895-1919 The Northey Forced Labor Crisis, 1919-1921 Interlude: Forced Labor Bounded, 1921-1925 Normalizing Force: Archdeacon Walter Owen and the Issue of Communal Labor, 1920-1930 02 02 This project examines the development of forced labor in colonial Kenya from 1912 to 1930 and the parallel normalization of communal forced labor during this time period.

This article examines the amnesty powers granted to a variety of truth commissions (TC). It considers whether the process by which TCs are able to recommend for perpetrators who cooperate with TCs (and usually provide truth) has ensured that such individuals come forward and cooperate with these institutions. This is decisive, as TCs everywhere experience difficulties in obtaining perpetrator cooperation and testimony. Crucially, unlike the South African TC, which had the power to directly grant amnesty, later TCs have only been able to recommend, to their governments, that amnesty be granted to specific persons who meet criteria laid out in the specific TC’s legal mandate. The article therefore examines the efficacy of TC amnesty powers in South Africa, Grenada, Indonesia, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Nepal, Timor-Leste/Indonesia, Liberia, Kenya, South Korea, and Timor-Leste. All these institutions had different provisions as to when, and for what reasons they could make a recommendation that amnesty be given (besides the South African TC which could directly grant amnesty). This article touches on some of the problems that may occur during such processes that need careful attention to ensure that perpetrators enter such conditional amnesty processes, and tell the truth once they do. The lessons learnt from the various TC amnesty processes are brought to the fore to determine what future TCs ought to bear in mind should it be decided to use conditional amnesty methods.

This book examines the engagement of African states with the United Nations Human Rights Council’s Universal Periodic Review (UPR) mechanism. This human rights mechanism is known for its pacific and non-confrontational approach to monitoring state human rights implementation. Coming at the end of the first three cycles of the UPR, the work offers a detailed analysis of the effectiveness of African states’ engagement and its potential impact. It develops a framework which comprehensively evaluates aspects of states’ UPR engagement, such as the pre-review national consultation process and implementation of UPR recommendations, which, until recently, have received little attention. The book considers the potential for acculturation in engagement with the UPR and unpacks the impact of politics, regionalism, cultural relativism, rights ritualism and civil society. The work provides a useful guide for policymakers and international human rights law practitioners, as well as a valuable resource for international legal and international relations academics and researchers.

Truth commissions are widely considered to be a key tool of transitional justice mechanisms (TJMs), whose goal is to achieve truth, justice, and reconciliation after violent conflict or dictatorship. However, policy actors promoting these mechanisms have often not adequately engaged in a critical reflection of the policy measures they are suggesting. Instead, they usually argue from normative points of view rather than relying on empirical evidence. During the last decade, there has been a continued debate as to whether or not TJMs actually work and what impact they have. Drawing on research from three case studies (Kenya, Sierra Leone, and Timor-Leste), this paper analyzes the (non)implementation of recommendations produced in the final reports of truth commissions created after armed conflict. The work focuses on the impact of truth commissions on democracy, peace, and institutional reform. The analysis roughly follows the four-step approach set out by Skaar, Maica, and Eide (2015) to measure the impact of truth commissions and illustrates both the opportunities they provide and their limitations.

International treaties, conventions, and organizations to protect refugees were established in the aftermath of World War II to protect people escaping targeted persecution by their own governments. However, the nature of cross-border displacement has transformed dramatically since then. Such threats as environmental change, food insecurity, and generalized violence force massive numbers of people to flee states that are unable or unwilling to ensure their basic rights, as do conditions in failed and fragile states that make possible human rights deprivations. Because these reasons do not meet the legal understanding of persecution, the victims of these circumstances are not usually recognized as \"refugees,\" preventing current institutions from ensuring their protection. In this book, Alexander Betts develops the concept of \"survival migration\" to highlight the crisis in which these people find themselves. Examining flight from three of the most fragile states in Africa-Zimbabwe, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and Somalia-Betts explains variation in institutional responses across the neighboring host states. There is massive inconsistency. Some survival migrants are offered asylum as refugees; others are rounded up, detained, and deported, often in brutal conditions. The inadequacies of the current refugee regime are a disaster for human rights and gravely threaten international security. InSurvival Migration, Betts outlines these failings, illustrates the enormous human suffering that results, and argues strongly for an expansion of protected categories.

Transitional justice is a critical component in peacebuilding in post-conflict regimes. States recovering from periods of protracted structural or manifest conflict institute restorative and retributive transitional justice mechanisms with the aim of pursuing justice for victims and perpetrators. There is, however, a phenomenon that has been observed in the international system whereby post-conflict regimes that have initiated transitional justice interventions in pursuit of a sustainable peace experience relapse into violence. This paper examines the outcome and impact of transitional justice interventions in peacebuilding in post-conflict regimes using the case of Kenya. The study integrates a descriptive and explanatory multiple case study of the Truth, Justice and Reconciliation Commission and the International Criminal Court processes to examine the intersection of transitional justice and peacebuilding in the country. The paper demonstrates that these transitional justice processes suffered legislative enactment and enforcement inadequacies as well as limitations of state interference and local ownership that hindered their effectiveness. Due to noncooperation and non-compliance in their implementation, these transitional justice mechanisms failed to respond to the protracted latent and manifest antagonisms between perpetrators and victims, thereby constraining the peacebuilding agenda in the country.

Transition and Justice examines a series of cases from across the African continent where peaceful 'new beginnings' were declared after periods of violence and where transitional justice institutions helped define justice and the new socio-political order. * Offers a new perspective on transition and justice in Africa transcending the institutional limits of transitional justice * Covers a wide range of situations, and presents a broad range of sites where past injustices are addressed  * Examines cases where peaceful 'new beginnings' have been declared after periods of violence * Addresses fundamental questions about transitions and justice in societies characterized by a high degree of external involvement and internal fragmentation