Speakers: Michal Ben-Josef Hirsch, Research Fellow, International Security Program; Jennifer M. Dixon, Associate Professor of Political Science, Villanova University

When does a principled idea become an international norm? And how do international norms change and develop over time and space? Over the past three decades, international norms scholarship has made great advances in our understanding of the nature, causes, and effects of the international normative environment. And yet, it also features a high degree of conceptual idiosyncrasy and lacks a shared conceptual framework for studying norm development. These shortcomings have hampered the accumulation of knowledge in the study of norms and stymied the ability to provide much-needed empirical assessments and methodological tools to assess the origins, trajectory, and current status of international norms. This seminar — which is based on a book manuscript in progress — introduces a conceptual model of norm development and uses a mixed-methods analysis of the development over time of five core international human rights norms: the prescriptive norms of legal accountability; truth-seeking; and reparations and the prohibitive norms against genocide and torture. Combined, the study of these five norms seeks to assess the development and status of the international human rights regime from 1945 to the present.

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To illustrate the potential effects of symbolic strategies, the seminar considers the application of symbolic reparations to the "historical" case of the 1948 Palestinian refugees in the context of Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations. The empirical analysis draws on previous rounds of official negotiations, on track-two workshops and initiatives, and on civil-society projects.

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This seminar will provide an overview of India-Israel relations and will argue that there is a gap between India's material interests and its ideological positions and that this gap might be detrimental to the future of India-Israel bilateral relations.

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The common perception is that transitional justice and specifically symbolic reparations are concerned with notions of reconciliation and forgiveness and therefore with post-conflict peace-building processes and not with on-going conflicts. Dr. Ben-Josef Hirsch will argue not only that transitional justice is a viable framework for the Israeli-Palestinian context but also that the use of symbolic reparations may have the potential for breaking the long-standing deadlock in the negotiations.

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This seminar asks what, if any, has been the impact of the ideological and political alliance between American Christian Zionists and the Israeli Right in the context of negotiating an Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement.

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Over the last decade, truth and reconciliation commissions have been initiated in many countries emerging out of conflicts. A broad consensus has developed that truth-seeking not only contributes to reconciliation, but also alleviates victims' suffering, promotes trust, contributes to the consolidation of democracy, and helps  prevent future conflict. In spite of the development of truth and reconciliation commissions as an international norm, empirically assessing these assumed benign effects has been challenging. In this seminar, the speakers introduce a community-level survey methodology for assessing the impact of truth and reconciliation commissions. They develop and present the initial application of this methodology to the case of the truth and reconciliation commission in Sierra Leone (2000).

Please join us! Coffee and tea provided. Everyone is welcome, but admittance will be on a first come–first served basis.

Why and how have Truth Commissions come to be perceived as an "essential" policy for newly democratic states emerging from a repressive regime or conflict?

Please join us! Coffee and tea provided. Everyone is welcome, but admittance will be on a first come–first served basis.