News and Events
NEWS
Transitional Justice Graduate Symposium 2025
On April 14/2025, graduate students in the TJ program presented their thesis and dissertation research in the first annual Transitional Justice Graduate Symposium.
The papers presented included:
Maria Laura Flores Barba (Hispanic Studies)
“Looking Back Together: Community Crowdsourcing of a Photographic Archive for Memory and Justice in El Salvador”
Luis Miguel Herrera Bejines (Hispanic Studies)
"Biopolitics, Necropolitics and Migration in the Novelistic Production of Donato Ndongo-Bidyogo"
Hanna Protasova (Languages and Cultures: Comparative Literature)
"From Individual Trauma to Collective Memory: Babyn Yar Commemoration in Soviet Kyiv, 1941-1966"
Fatima Abdallah (English and Writing Studies)
Political Detention, Memorialization, and Identity: A Case for Literature as Transitional Justice
Julia Wainwright, (Political Science & Transitional Justice)
"Cultivating Resistance: Multigenerational Farming in Palestine"
Priscila Barros (Sociology)
"United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples' Language and Symbolic Power"
Michael Campbell (Law)
"Canada's Obligation to "Search the Landfill": Locating the Right to Memorialization in International Law"
Jeremy (Wei Chieh) Tsai (Sociology; pictured)
"Post-Fukushima triple disaster justice? Examining injustice claims in English language Japanese news articles between 2011 and 2021"
Dr Valerie Oosterveld (Acting Director; Law), Dr Samar El-Masri (Graduate Course Supervisor), and Dr Scott Schaffer (Graduate Chair) chaired the sessions.
PhD Student Jacob Evoy on Transitional Justice, Queerness and Intergenerational Trauma
Transitional Justice PhD student Jacob Evoy, who uses they/them pronouns, successfully defended their doctoral dissertation in June 2024 and plans to share their work during Queer Research Day this fall, an annual event at Western showcasing graduate student research through presentations, academic posters and one-day programming across campus.
Evoy studied in the department of gender, sexuality and women’s studies in Western’s Faculty of Arts and Humanities [and was part of the TJ Collaborative Graduate Specialization]. They focus on the study of transitional justice – a response to human rights violations that seeks to recognize victims – in post-conflict resolution and intergenerational trauma and queerness.
Evoy developed an oral history of a marginalized group, interviewing 16 queer children of Holocaust survivors and gathering information on their life experiences as members of both Jewish and queer communities.
Full story can be found on Western News.
Ukraine: One Year After Russia’s Escalated War
On February 27, 2023, the Centre held an online conference, Ukraine: One Year After Russia’s Escalated War. The first panel, chaired by Prof. Marta Dyczok, focused on information warfare, with speakers Yevhen Fedchenko, Journalism School, University of Kyiv Mohyla Academy; Andriy Kulykov, Hromadske Radio, Ukraine; and Roman Horbyk, Södertörn University College, Sweden.
The second panel, International Criminal Law and Russia's War on Ukraine, was chaired by Prof. Valerie Oosterveld, with speakers Kateryna Busol, National University of Kyiv Mohyla Academy (on investigating conflict-related sexual violence); Wayne Jordash, Global Rights Compliance Law Firm and Foundation (on crime investigations in Ukraine); and Jennifer Trahan, New York University Center for Global Affairs (on the proposal for a tribunal on aggression).
The conference was sponsored by the Centre for Transitional Justice and Post-Conflict Reconstruction; Western Law's Public and Private International Law Research Group; Faculty of Social Science; Department of History; and the Department of Political Science.
Videorecordings of the conference are available here:
Russia's War Part 1.mp4
Russia's War Part 2.mp4
The State and Indigenous Governance in North America and Sub-Saharan Africa:
A Cross-Disciplinary Discussion
The Centre co-hosted a successful workshop on May 4-6, 2022, entitled “The State and Indigenous Governance in Sub-Saharan Africa and North America.” The workshop brought together Indigenous and non-Indigenous scholars from sub-Saharan Africa and North America to explore common governance challenges and successes in the realization of Indigenous rights in these two diverse regions.
An edited report summarizing and analyzing the presentations and discussions from the workshop is now available online and in printed form.
EVENTS
The Taliban's Impact on Afghanistan's Legal Landscape: Undoing Two Decades of Progress
Ghizal Haress, York University
Friday, February 7, 2025
2:00-3:30 pm
Social Sciences SSC 6210
Past as a Political Tool: Collective Memory and Exclusionary Politics
Dr. Kate Korycki, TJ Centre & Western University's Gender, Sexuality, and Women's Studies
Friday, March 15, 2024
3:30-4:30 pm
Social Sciences SSC 6210
From Discrimination to Death: Genocide Process through a Human Rights Lens
Dr. Melanie O'Brien, Visiting Professor at the Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies, University of Minnesota, and President of the International Association of Genocide Scholars
Friday, March 8, 2024
4:00-5:00 pm
Social Sciences SSC 6210
20 Days in Mariupol, Director: Mstyslav Chernov
Free Film Screening - A documentary about the first weeks of war.
Monday, February 26, 2024
6:00-8:00 pm
Weldon Library Community Room, Ground Floor
Advancing Digital Peacebuilding: Digital Methods to Support Child Protection Initiatives
Dr. Yadira Lizama-Mué, TJ Centre & Western University's Cultureplex Lab
Friday, February 9, 2024
4:00-5:00 pm
Social Sciences SSC 6210
NEST Distinguished Speaker Series
Geoff Dancy, University of Toronto
Friday, January 12, 2024
2:00-3:30 pm
Social Sciences SSC 6210
Conducting Research in Ukraine During War
Professor Marta Dyczok, Western University Departments of History and Political Science
Thursday, September 19, 2023
12:00-12:50 pm
Social Sciences SSC 6210
Gender Justice in Liberian Peace Huts - Options for Survivors of Sexual and Gender-Based Violence
Loyce Mrewa, Western Law PhD Candidate
Thursday, October 26, 2023
12:00-12:50 pm
Social Sciences SSC 6210
Child Soldiers and Transitional Justice
Professor Mark Drumbl, Washington & Lee Faculty of Law
Monday, February 13, 2023
3:30-4:30 pm
Social Sciences SSC 3026
The Future of Genocide Studies Panel
Thursday, November 17, 2022
5:00pm, via Zoom
Panel: Dr. Lemos (presiding), Ben Kiernan (emeritus, Yale University), Doris Bergen (University of Toronto), Victoria Tin-Bor Hui (University of Notre Dame), Andrew Woolford (Manitoba), and Lindsey Scorgie-Porter (Huron).
Cambridge World History of Genocide, Book Launch
Thursday, November 17, 2022
4:00-5:00 pm, via Zoom
Panel: Dr. Lemos (presiding), Ben Kiernan (emeritus, Yale University), Doris Bergen (University of Toronto), Victoria Tin-Bor Hui (University of Notre Dame), Andrew Woolford (Manitoba), and Lindsey Scorgie-Porter (Huron).
Ebola was a threat to our Peace, we had to stop it! Informal Caring Motivations, Liberian Women and the 2014 Ebola Epidemic
Thursday, November 24, 2022
3:30-4:30 pm
Social Sciences SSC 2024
Gender-Based Persecution and the International Criminal Court: Prosecution Strategy and Policy
Thursday, Dececember 1, 2022
3:30-4:30 pm
Social Sciences SSC 2024
