Justice for Victims Perspectives on rights, transition and reconciliation

Justice for Victims brings together the world?s leading scholars in the fields of study surrounding victimization in a pioneering international collection. This book focuses on the current study of victims of crime, combining both legal and social-scientific perspectives, articulating both in new directions and questioning whether victims really do have more rights in our modern world.

This book offers an interdisciplinary approach, covering large-scale (political) victimization, terrorist victimization, sexual victimization and routine victimization. Split into three sections, this book provides in-depth coverage of: victims' rights, transitional justice and victims' perspectives, and trauma, resilience and justice. Victims' rights are conceptualised in the human rights framework and discussed in relation to supranational, international and regional policies. The transitional justice section covers victims of war from those caught between peace and justice, as well as post-conflict justice. The final section focuses on post-traumatic stress, connecting psychological and anthropological perceptions in analysing collective violence, mass victimization and trauma.

This book addresses challenging and new issues in the field of victimology and the study of transitional and restorative justice. As such, it will be of interest to researchers, practitioners and students interested in the fields of victimology, transitional justice, restorative justice and trauma work.

General introduction, Felix Mukwiza Ndahinda, Antony Pemberton and Inge Vanfraechem Part 1. Victims’ rights 1.Victims’ rights, Paul Rock 2. Respecting victims of crime: Key distinctions in a theory of victims’ rights, Antony Pemberton 3.Recognition of victims’ rights through EU Action: Latest developments and challenges, Helga Ezendam & Frida Wheldon 4.Implementing victim rights in Newly Industrialized Countries (NICs): Reflections on major challenges and recommendations for the future, K. Jaishankar 5.Should reparations for massive human rights abuses perpetrated on African victims during colonial times be given?, Jeremy Sarkin 6. State compensation for victims of violent crime, David Miers 7.Legal protection and assistance for victims of human trafficking in the United States: A harm reduction approach, Xin Ren Part 2. Transitional justice 8. Victims, transitional justice and social reconstruction: Who is setting the agenda?, Harvey Weinstein 9. Integral justice for victims, Rama Mani 10. Repairing the impossible: Victimological approaches to international crimes, Rianne Letschert & Stephan Parmentier 11. Transitional justice and the victims: A special focus on the case of Chile, José Zalaquett 12. The Transitional Justice Imaginary: Uncle San, Aunty Yan and victim participation at the Khmer Rouge Tribunal, Alexander Laban Hinton Part 3. Trauma, resilience and justice 13. Perceived control over traumatic events: Is it always adaptive?, Patricia Frazier 14. Procedural justice for victims of crime: Are victim impact statements and victim-offender mediation rising to the challenge?, Tinneke Van Camp & Vicky De Mesmaecker 15. Delivering justice to child victims of crime: Navigating the support and criminal justice systems, Ilse Van de Walle 16. ETA terrorism victims’ experience with restorative encounters in Spain, Gema Varona 17. Victims of corruption: A conceptual framework, Qingli Meng and Paul Friday 18. Reconceptualizing sexual victimization and justice, Kathleen Daly.

Inge Vanfraechem, Ph.D., is manager of the European FP7 ALTERNATIVE project and works at the KU Leuven, where she received her B.A., M.A. and Ph.D in criminology (2006) on the implementation of family group conferencing in Belgium, a path-breaking approach to the restorative justice field in Europe. She has worked as researcher and co-promoter on the Evaluation of Victim Policy in Belgium at the National Institute of Criminal Sciences and Criminology (NICC) at the Belgian Ministry of Justice during 2007-2010.

Dr. Vanfraechem returned to the KU Leuven Institute of Criminology in 2011 to work as coordinator and co-promoter of several interdisciplinary and collaborative European projects for the European Forum for Restorative Justice (EFRJ) and Leuven Institute of Criminology (LINC), such as: Victims and restorative justice, Conferencing: a way forward for Europe, and Restorative Justice and Crime Prevention. She is editor of ‘Restorative Justice: an International Journal’, the only peer-reviewed, high standard, academic and international journal in the field of restorative justice. Dr. Vanfraechem is also a key member of the Working Group on Victimology of the European Society of Criminology (ESC).

Antony Pemberton, PhD., is Associate Professor and Director of Studies at the International Victimology Institute Tilburg (INTERVICT) in the Netherlands. He has published more than 60 articles, books and book chapters on victimological subjects, with a particular emphasis on victims in justice processes. Dr. Pemberton has previously co-authored a book on victims of terrorism, (Assisting victims of terrorism, 2010), co-edited a volume on victims of international crimes (Victimological approaches to international crimes: Africa, 2011) and has also published a series of articles applying concepts from social and clinical psychology to victimology (included in The cross-over: an interdisciplinary approac