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Conference: "Contested Visions of Justice: Allied War Crimes Trials in a Global Context, 1943-1958" | Dublin September 25-27, 2015

From September 25-27, 2015, the conference "Contested Visions of Justice: Allied War Crimes Trials in a Global Context, 1943-1958" took place at Boston College in Dublin. It was jointly organized by Dr. Kerstin von Lingen, Head of the Junior Research Group "Transcultural Justice", Dr. Wolfgang Form, Executive Director of the ICWC (Marburg), Dr. Franziska Seraphim (Boston) and Dr. Barak Kushner (Cambridge).

Despite weighty differences in the goals and conduct of war by Nazi Germany on the one hand and Japan on the other, "War Crimes Trial Policies" emerged as globally interconnected justice issues that transcended the boundaries of nations, cultures, and continents. The aim of the interdisciplinary conference in Dublin was to analyze and compare the transnational connections between political, administrative, legal, and social mechanisms of Allied "transitional justice" as they shaped the postwar world.

During the three days in Dublin, participants and speakers from Australia, Germany, Japan, Singapore, the United States, and the United Kingdom explored the history and legacy of international war crimes trials, di- and converging notions of justice in the postwar world, and other related topics. In four panels, presenters and discussants highlighted the connections between different disciplines and different approaches to analyzing postwar attempts to enforce institutionalized law and justice in a global context.

The expert discussions focused on the connections between the International Military Tribunals in Nuremberg and Tokyo, the international legal mechanisms these proceedings created, and the effects this had, particularly the lasting influences on the development of the postwar world order. The "keynote lecture" on the first day was given by William Schabas (Middlesex University London) on "London 1941-1944: Conceiving the Permanent International Criminal Court."

The conference was generously supported by the German Historical Insitute Washington and Boston College.

For more information, including the detailed program, please visit the conference website.