This chapter opens with a survey of the literary genres in which the human rights subject emerges: the environmental justice novel, the postcolonial novel, the neo-slavery novel, and the graphic novel. Later, it moves to study the human person as victim, and the community as they are constructed within the genres, making the argument that embodiment, dignity, and collective vulnerability define both the person and the community. In the final section, the chapter narrows the focus to one genre, the environmental justice novel, looking specifically at the works of Isabel Allende, Yaa Gyasi, and Edward P Jones.

Chapter 2 is a comprehensive overview and critical assessment of the extant academic literature on gender and the global climate crisis. It begins with a section showcasing how the emphasis has largely been on women at the micro level, which often ends up portraying women as victims that need rescuing, thus habitually overlooking women’s agency. The subsequent section discusses in brief the concept of climate governance, before moving onto a discussion of the theory of representation. This section focuses on Pitkin’s (1967) typology of representation as well as extant research on the four dimensions of representation, whilst simultaneously outlining and anchoring the research questions upon which the book rests. The nine research questions cover a range of topics, including (but not limited to) the factors governing the success of female parliamentarians, gendered portfolios, leadership opportunities, the role of political parties, women representing women, intersectionality, and gender quotas.

Chapter 7 begins with a discussion of how colonialism and the climate issue in the MENA are strongly linked, and how this relationship affects not only development trajectories, but also the status of the climate as a policy area and women’s representation. The second part of the chapter covers Othering, that is, the portrayal of women as vulnerable victims or saviours, focusing on the dangers of feminizing vulnerability and responsibility, whilst also showcasing how Othering of women in the Global South occurs among female parliamentarians in the MENA. In terms of the global climate crisis, this has led to a situation where the climate issue is not prioritized as much as it could be if the female parliamentarians were more accountable to the electorate and identified more strongly with a broader group of women, that is, beyond the narrow elite segment of the population from which they themselves were recruited. At present, those that are the most passionate about combatting the climate crisis are the youth, whereas those who stand to gain the most are marginalized women — two groups that are nothing like the female parliamentarians, who are supposed to act in their interest.

Criminal law is divided into two general categories. Substantive criminal law is concerned with the declaration of conduct that is prohibited and the calendar of associated penalties. Procedural law regulates the conduct of authorities during the investigative and trial phase of proceedings. The law of criminal procedure is divided into three broad phases: pre-trial, trial and sentencing. Each phase is governed by important policy concerns relating to due process, the right to silence, the liberty of the individual, privacy and equal treatment. Some of these policy concerns will be discussed throughout this chapter. This chapter provides a overview of some of the important aspects of criminal procedure, but readers are encouraged to consult specialists reference texts in their own jurisdiction for detail.We begin this chapter by considering the nature of summary offences, before turning to explore the concept of public peace and its associated relationship with procedure and powers. We then consider the major categories of summary offences relating to public order, before concluding with traffic offences.

While the international legal issues related to the search for disappeared persons have received considerable attention, limited research has been conducted on how participation in the search impacts victims’ lives. In particular, we argue that the importance of victim recognition needs to be inserted into these discussions, and our understanding improved about what types of institutional and social responses are needed to ensure effective and victim-oriented search processes. Our chapter utilises the concept of ‘recognition relationships’ with reference to two cases: Colombia and El Salvador. Our discussion illuminates the ways in which a focus on recognition relationships captures the dynamics of power, mobilisation, and participation which are central to any successful and just search process.

This chapter explores how victims have participated in unofficial transitional justice efforts involving non-state armed groups. Using the memoir of Seamus Kearney in the Northern Ireland context as a case study, we critically examine how victims participate in what we argue to be ‘quiet’ transitional justice efforts. Our discussion centres around two interlinked foci: the story told about how Kearney unofficially engaged with the Irish Republican Army in the pursuit of acknowledgement and truth; and how his memoir represents a participatory space where he leads in narrating the experience of ‘quiet’ transitional justice. Arguing that his memoir is, and contains, evidence of victim-led transitional justice, we juxtapose Kearney’s agency in the ‘quiet’ transitional justice process with his more passive role within formal truth recovery mechanisms. In doing so, we expand the transitional justice imagination on the place and role of victims beyond their engagement with formal mechanisms.

Victims’ demands for reparations are epitomised as a non-violent resistance to the violence they have suffered. The chapter explores how victims resist state narratives, coercive tactics, and violence in their claims for reparations, reflecting on the long-term impact of such resistance. Drawing on interviews with over 100 victims across six case studies, the chapter develops three themes around resistance: social mobilisation; self-repair; and the struggle for reparations. It examines various forms of non-violent resistance, including bottom-up approaches, documentation of violations, and the creation of subalternate perspectives. The chapter also addresses the role of social movements in reparations, emphasizing the dynamic process of collective identity formation, grievance framing, and the negotiation of justice. In conclusion, the chapter underscores the importance of understanding reparations as a multi-faceted struggle involving legal, political, and social dimensions, and the need for continued advocacy and research to address the complexities and challenges faced by victims in their pursuit of redress.

By understanding participation in transitional justice as the capacity of victims to exercise agency in addressing their needs, this chapter shows how victim mobilisation is a form of participation that can advance victims’ agendas independent of any formal process. Using the lens of critical victimology to both highlight and privilege the agency of victims of violations, we show how relatives of persons missing in Nepal’s armed conflict have successfully renegotiated their relationships with their families, community, and even local government, in ways that impact how they experience victimhood. This shows how collective action and empowerment can serve to drive social change in the everyday spaces that victims occupy in ways that can transform their lives, even though impunity remains institutionalised by the authorities. This reframes participation in transitional justice as something that can be realised largely independent of a formal process.

This chapter focuses on the case study of Northern Ireland to interrogate the intersection between victimhood, victims’ groups as drivers of first-generation transitional justice, and the mobilisation of empathy. The chapter argues that while agency and participation are often presented as exclusively positive attributes, the moral economy of victimhood can compel individuals and groups to convey their suffering in a particular register to make their losses ‘matter’ and to ‘mobilise empathy’. In Northern Ireland, the absence of a formal process of dealing with the past and ongoing contest over the legal definition of a victim or survivor of the conflict has made these dynamics particularly acute. From situating victims’ groups as ‘moral communities’ to exploring how victimhood and demands for transitional justice are expressed in different registers across the two communities, this chapter adds a new lens to the study of victims and victim engagement in transitional justice.

This chapter shows that the current BJP government frames Muslim women’s rights as separate from Muslim men’s rights, and Muslim women as victims of Muslim men. When historical events vitalize stereotypes, as in the two events I will examine in this chapter, the Muslim woman emerges as a subject of rights as part of the Indian nation-state. The Shah Bano controversy in 1985 was a matter of maintenance or alimony for Muslim women after divorce. The resulting judgment denied rights to alimony to Muslim women under Section 125 of the Indian Constitution. This was the first moment where the Muslim woman subject was constructed as one to be saved. Indian National Congress and Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi were the critical actors at that time. More than thirty years later, when India was firmly in the grip of Hindu nationalism, the victimhood of the Muslim woman subject became relevant again with the second Muslim Women’s (Protection of Rights) Bill presented and passed in August 2019 which outlawed instant triple talaq in the Sharaya Bano case.

In the last decade, the number of migrants within the African continent has increased significantly, which triggered many African states to adopt laws criminalizing illegal entry or working without a work permit. Further, the European Union has signed agreements with several African states to prevent migrants entering the EU, which resulted in many migrants are utilizing dangerous routes, being exposed to serious human rights violations, including enforced disappearances. The Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance prohibits expulsion of persons who can be in danger of being tortured or forcibly disappeared. However, many states lack these provisions within the domestic laws or do not implement them, leaving many migrants vulnerable to criminal gangs and state security abuses. However, the lack of political will, technical expertise, lack of legal structure and understanding of the crime of enforced disappearances all lead to the failure of the states to prevent enforced disappearances of the migrants on the continent.

More than 40,000 people went missing in the ex-Yugoslavia armed conflicts where the fate and whereabout of almost 10,000 of them is still unknown. Since then, various initiatives at the national and the regional level have been made to carry out search and identification processes, but the reparative mechanisms available to families of persons who disappeared have remained underdeveloped, and largely differs within the region. This chapter sheds a light on the recent legislative developments and a jurisprudence in the ex-Yugoslav republics that used to be the most affected by conflict; Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia and Serbia (Kosovo and Metohija), focusing on the differences in the level of the international obligations for the states in the Region arising from both: different ratification status of relevant international law instruments and the different status in terms of the EU accession processes. The special attention was paid to the direct and ex-tempore applicability of those international law instruments, considering the complexity of the constitutional organisation of the states, but also the different time frames which the states apply when define ‘the state of war’.

This general introduction introduces the significance and thinking behind the Cambridge History, and the challenges in defining and delimiting the Holocaust. It discusses the way in which the Holocaust’s massive impact on postwar thought has shaped the approach to the Cambrideg History. Finally, it makes sense of the structure of the four volumes.

The Introduction focuses on the experiences of victims of the Holocaust rather than perpetrators. It addresses victims’ perceptions, understandings, reactions, self-help and varied attempts at resistance. It also concerns Roma, mentally and physically challenged individuals, Slavs and Soviet POWs, and homosexuals. Finally, it addresses historiography, as do most of the chapters in this volume.

The idea of an “integrated history” of the Holocaust is primarily associated with Saul Friedländer. For Friedländer, integration means bringing the Jewish dimension of the Holocaust into the history of the Nazi epoch. This is to be achieved by ensuring that the historian’s focus is not only on the Germans but also on institutions of all sorts across Nazi-occupied Europe, as well as on Jewish responses both under Nazi occupation and outside it. This “simultaneous representation of the events – at all levels and in all different places – enhances the perception of the magnitude, the complexity, and the interrelatedness of the multiple components of this history,” as he writes. This chapter considers the extent to which Friedländer realized his goal, and asks what other kinds of integration – such as placing the genocide of the Jews in a single analytical framework alongside the Nazis’ “other victims”; or placing the Holocaust in the context of genocide studies – might help us to understand about the Holocaust as a historical event or about its significance for the contemporary world. While most historians are in favor of integration, what that means in practice remains contested.

This chapter investigates what Primo Levi called the space “which separates the victims from the persecutors.” It uses historical examination, an anthropological approach to morality, and a historiographical review of writing to assess such “gray zones.” These can include stealing food, the role of Jewish physicians, the Sonderkommandos, or decisions made by prisoner functionaries.