13th and 14th, April 2011
Sala Lauree, Facoltà di Scienze Politiche
via Conservatorio 7, Milano
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Outline and purposes of the Conference
To consider the relation between truth and justice requires to move on different levels of enquiry and to assume different perspectives of research. To simplify it could be said that the basic question the Conference aims at answering is the following: is it possible to consider truth as a fruitful notion in political theories and political practices?
From this perspective one of the main purposes of the Conference is to look at the relationships between truth and justice well beyond the experience of Truth Commissions. Such a question will be addressed both in normative terms and by referring to practices appealing to truth out of political or juridical intents.
To begin with, it is necessary to investigate the sources of the widespread diffidence and uneasiness toward truth. This requires to assess whether the desire for truth is hazardous and pointless or unavoidable and potentially productive from the perspective of political problems.
The need to go back over the relationship between politics and truth and to, eventually, rehabilitate the positive role of truth, is urged not only by philosophical considerations or normative insights about the necessity of critically revising the main paradigms of political philosophy. It also springs from the need of reconsidering those practices that cannot but explicitly put into question the relationship between politics and truth.
In fact, focusing on how similar practices understand such a relationship opens up new lines of investigation about this theme.
In particular, the case of the Truth Commissions raises the question concerning the link between truth and justice and between truth and reconciliation.
Such a case also helps enlightening the tensions and the possible arrangements among truth, justice, and agreement and it seems to hint at a conception of justice that cannot avoid reference to truth.
More generally, it seems that the connection between judicial proceedings and truth is a constant through the history of human societies and that it is meant to accommodate fundamental and universal social or political exigencies.
PROGRAMME
Wednesday, 13th April, 2011 9.00am
WELCOME ADDRESS
Prof. Marco Maraffi - Head of Department of Social and Political Studies
Prof. Maurizio Ferrera Presidente of the Graduate School in Social, Economic and Political Sciences
Morning session, 9.30am
JUSTICE, TRUTH, TRANSITIONS
Chair
Antonella Besussi (University of Milan)
TRANSITIONAL JUSTICE AND COSTOTUTION-MAKING PROCESSES
Andrea Lollini (University of Bologna)
TRANSITIONAL JUSTICE AS LIBERAL NARRATIVE
Ruti Teitel (New York Law School)
11.30 Break
Discussant
Claudio Corradetti (University of Rome "Tor Vergata")
Chantal Meloni (University of Milan)
This session focuses on the difficult balance between justice and truth and considers the ends of transitional justice, namely that kind of justice which is supposed to govern regimes' transitions and to legitimate new beginnings. The aim is to formulate, on the basis of concrete cases and experiences, paradigms of transitional justice that give account of possible tensions and equilibriums between truth and justice: that is between retribution and restoration, memory and oblivion, past and present. From this perspective, the Truth and Reconciliation Commissions (TRC) – among which the South-African one is the most investigated – represent a model which is as interesting as controversial.
April 13th, Afternoon session, 15.00
ANOTHER KIND OF JUSTICE?
Chair
Alessandra Facchi (University of Milan)
DRAWING THE LINE: AMNESTY, TRUTH COMMISSION AND COLLECTIVE DENIAL
Frank Haldemann (Geneva Academy of International Humanitarian Law and Human Rights)
WHEN TRANSITIONAL JUSTICE BECOME RESTORATIVE
Sandrine Lefranc (Institut des Sciences sociales du Politique - ISP/CNRS Université Paris Ouest)
17.00 Break
Discussant
Enrico Biale (University of Piemonte Orientale, Vercelli)
Beatrice Magni (University of Milan)
Valeria Ottonelli (University of Genoa)
This session focuses on the unavoidable yet very difficult task of balancing normative requirements and political commitments about what justice requires. This appears as clear considering the case of a new democratic regime confronted with a past characterised by abuses and violence. Remembering the liberal argument for the banishment of truth from politics with the aim of guaranteeing pacification, reticence or silence about truth, or even the overcoming of truth via forgiveness, may be politically fruitful in order to secure stability and pacification. Yet, a society in transition toward a new regime cannot find reliable foundations in a partial account of truth: for instance, respect for the rule of law or for rights seems incompatible with impunity for those who have infringed both. Indeed, differently from the liberal case, it seems that, in the case of transitional justice, truth and justice cannot but stand together, it seems that they need each other. It is therefore necessary to elaborate a model of transitional justice that, on the one hand, does not rely on an expediential trade-off between truth and justice and, on the other hand, takes into account the unavoidable connection between retributive justice and restorative justice.
April 14th, Morning session, 9.30am
MEMORY, FORGIVENESS AND UNFORGIVABLE
Chair
Franca D'Agostini (Politecnico of Turin - University of Milan)
THE (IM)POSSIBILITY OF POLITICAL FORGIVENESS
Paige Digeser (University of California, Santa Barbara)
JUSTICE, PEACE, TRUTH. GERMAN AND ITALIAN WAR CRIMES AND ALLIED JUSTICE IN ITALY: 1945-1948
Michele Battini (University of Pisa)
11.30 Break
Discussant
Francesca Pasquali (University of Milan)
Mario Ricciardi (University of Milan)
Gabriella Silvestrini (University of Piemonte Orientale, Alessandria)
What happens to truth when it is publicly acknowledged, that is when it becomes part of the public scene, and what happens to politics because of such an acknowledgment? Can forgiveness be a political concept? Is amnesty a good solution? The fourth session of the Conference wonders what exactly forgiveness means in politics, how it is connected to other political ideas and concepts – such as memory – and whether it is a practice that ultimately coheres with political commitments and values. When we assume forgiveness in this way, we are on the road to map out theoretically and politically its meanings, its uses and, finally, its abuses, given the unforgivable character of some political evils.
Organizing Committee
Antonella Besussi (University of Milan), Beatrice Magni (University of Milan), Francesca Pasquali (University of Milan).
National Research Program "Truth and Politics" PRIN2008
Research Group of the University of Milan
Contact Detail
Francesca Pasquali
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This Conference is possibile thanks to: Graduate School in Social, Economic and Political Sciences, Department of Social and Political Studies, Laboratorio di Political Comparata e Filosofia Pubblica (LPF) - Centro Einaudi - Fondazione Compagnia di San Paolo
