Abstract
Buchanan and Zumbasen compiled an interesting, important, and impressive volume. This book is composed of 19 chapters/articles (including an introduction and epilogue) written by 20 scholars. Most authors are from North America (nine Canadians and six Americans), four from Europe, and one from Africa. The chapters present a remarkable coverage of the literature with extensive footnoting and a list of abbreviations that surpasses 100.
Reviewing an edited volume in the limited space allocated to a review is always a challenge. How is one to review 20 texts? I have chosen a path stepped on many times before me and decided to focus on the book’s guiding principle and very briefly on the chapters.
The book uses the umbrella concept of law in transition and focuses a critical examination on three related and interacting areas of research, namely, human rights (at some points the discussion is on rights more generally), law development, and transitional justice. Obviously, the area of law and globalization emerges in this context, but the editors are quick to point out that this topic reflects a failure to crystalize a question for which an answer is requested.
Each of the areas mentioned earlier is exposed to a critical examination. Let me touch on some. The first part of the book examines rights and developments, pointing out—again and again—how when these two discourses emerge together changes can take place. For example, that the convergence of the two discourses can benefit justice (Alwin and Coombe) and that informing labor rights by human rights may decrease politicization. Three chapters indeed take a more critical approach to politics. Sunhya Pahuja points out that experts from the developed world that examine global poverty tend to interpret Western intervention as “benevolent” or “altruistic.” But that this framing also tends to locate the causes for the misery in underdeveloped countries in these countries, neglecting to weigh the complicity of the developed countries in making this situation happen. Somewhat less directly, both Issa Shivji and Ananya Mukerjee Reed discuss human rights within a more implicit political critical stand. Shivji notes that the discourse integrating human rights with development failed to recognize such needs of third-world people as aspirations or histories. Reed points out that discourses of human rights and developments need to integrate issues of inequality and power.
The second part of the book spotlights transitional justice and development, and the different chapters focus critically on this theme. For example, violations of rights (political and civil) vis-à-vis the relevant contexts (Naomi Roht-Arriazza), various choices (Martha Minow), the economic and democratic context (Rosemary Nagy), sterilizations of Romani women (Morag Goodwin), patterns of apologies (Kirsten Anker), the European historical context (Christian Joerges), and contradictions in practicing transitional justice (Vasuki Nesiah).
The book opens and ends with excellent and illuminating introduction (by the editors) and epilogue (Bryant Garth).
Overall, one needs to remember that legislation is a complex process with very strong political elements. Political and ideological assumptions and compromises are in-built into many laws, particularly so laws that aim to set rules for, and regulate, rights or transitional justice. As such, using the law as an all-encompassing analytic concept is bound to be a complicated, challenging, and sometimes bumpy road. Development is also a complicated concept. Even the term itself is debated because it is not always clear or accepted what development means or what it should mean and whether there are—or indeed should be—universal patterns of development.
On p. 11, the editors ponder (via a quote) about how societies need to deal with an evil past. Toxic pasts have indeed attracted much attention from such researchers of collective memory as Jeffrey Olick (on Germany), Vered Vinitzky-Seroussi (on Israel), Jan-Werner Muller (on Europe), and Susan Rubin Suleiman (on France) to mention only a few. Juxtaposing collective memory versus transitional justice (e.g., Joachim Savelsberg and Ryan D. King work on American memories, atrocities, and the law) might have added a powerful section to this book. And indeed, examining the past as a background to contemporary deliberations on (human) rights, transitional justice, and development is a wise exercise. Looking at past conceptualizations of development can also be illuminating (e.g., Daniel Lerner’s book on the passing of traditional society).
Overall, Buchanan and Zumbansen accomplished to produce an essential and significant book. It provides us with an illuminating, sensitive, thought-provoking, and an important text that—no doubt—will stand the test of time. This book is packed with insights, critical, and informed views and is an indispensable text for anyone interested in delving into this fascinating, integrative, and challenging area of rights, transitional justice, and development—all under the umbrella of law in transition. Students, researchers, and activists will find this book very useful.