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Full-Text Articles in Jurisprudence

An Excuse-Centered Approach To Transitional Justice, David Gray Aug 2009

An Excuse-Centered Approach To Transitional Justice, David Gray

David C. Gray

Transitional justice asks what successor regimes, committed to human rights and the rule of law, can and should do to seek justice for atrocities perpetrated by and under their predecessors. The normal instinct is to prosecute criminally everyone implicated in past wrongs; but practical conditions in transitions make this impossible. As a result, most transitions pursue hybrid approaches, featuring prosecutions of those most responsible, amnesties, truth commissions, and reparations. This approach is often condemned as a compromise against justice. This article advances a transitional jurisprudence that justifies the hybrid approach by taking normative account of the unique conditions that define …


The Formless City Of Plato's Republic: How The Legal And Social Promotion Of Divorce And Same-Sex Marriage Contravenes The Principles And Undermines The Projects Of The Universal Declaration Of Human Rights, Scott Fitzgibbon Dec 2004

The Formless City Of Plato's Republic: How The Legal And Social Promotion Of Divorce And Same-Sex Marriage Contravenes The Principles And Undermines The Projects Of The Universal Declaration Of Human Rights, Scott Fitzgibbon

Scott T. FitzGibbon

In the Republic, Plato describes a stage in social decay called “formlessness,” where all sorts of differences are accepted and none is preferred. No one need hold office or obey. People are impatient with all the ties that ought to bind them. Plato's formess city displays three deplorable features. One is the denigration of law and custom. A second is ethical skepticism or nihilism. A third is the repudiation of duty. These features also characterize the divorce culture and the same-sex marriage movement. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights reflects a philosophy quite the reverse of Plato’s formless city. Its …