Newly Indepdent Institute for Historical Justice and Reconciliation Launches in The Hague

The Institute for Historical Justice and Reconciliation (IHJR), which began five years ago in Salzburg as an initiative of the Seminar, was formally launched as an independent institute in The Netherlands at an imposing ceremony in The Hague on May 26.

The setting, in the Great Hall of Justice in the Peace Palace, where the International Court of Justice holds its sessions, could hardly have been more magnificent. And the opening statement was made the President of that court, His Excellency Mr. Hisashi Owada of Japan, who has been a strong supporter of the Institute from its beginnings, and is a member of its Board of Advisors.

Judge Owada apologized for arriving late, but he had the best possible excuse – he had come straight from a lunch with the Queen of the Netherlands in honour of President Michelle Bachelet of Chile, which had run over time. Seated next to the guest of honour, Mr. Owada could hardly slip away unnoticed. But when he explained where he was going, the Chilean president, whose father was a victim of the Pinochet dictatorship, told him she had gone into politics to work for national reconciliation, which could only be based on a clear acknowledgement of historical facts, however unpleasant.

And that is precisely the mission of the IHJR – to promote reconciliation, tolerance and understanding in divided societies by dispelling public myths of disputed historical legacies – as was explained in the course of the meeting by Justice Richard Goldstone, Chairman of the Board of Advisors (who is now also a Director of the Salzburg Global Seminar); by co-founders Timothy Ryback (former vice-president and resident director of the Seminar) and Elazar Barkan (director of the human rights program at Columbia University); and by Catherine Cissé van den Muijsenbergh, who now co-directs the Institute with Professor Barkan.

Dr. Ryback, who is now director of programs at the Académie Diplomatique Internationale in Paris, described the Institute’s achievement in bringing together Israeli and Palestinian scholars to compile a shared narrative of events in and around 1948 (celebrated by Israel as its war of independence but remembered by Palestinians as the naqba or disaster when many of them were driven from their homes). Dr. Cissé spoke about its work in the Balkans, where it has helped found the Center for History, Democracy and Reconciliation, and more recently in Kenya where it is helping local scholars and artists to examine myths and legacies relating to land use and ownership, and to express their identity through shared narratives. And Prof. Barkan explained the philosophy of the Institute, following the lead of Justice Goldstone who related its origins at a meeting in Salzburg in 2004.

The meeting, which lasted nearly three hours and was attended by several judges of the ICJ, also heard tributes from Ambassador Ed Kronenbourg, Secretary General of the Dutch Foreign Ministry, and from the Mayor of The Hague, H.E. Jozias van Aartsen. (Both the ministry and the city have given generous support to the Institute, enabling it to establish its headquarters and permanent staff in the The Hague.) The Salzburg Global Seminar was represented by Professor Laurens Jan Brinkhorst, a member of its Board of Directors, who moderated the proceedings, and by Edward Mortimer, Senior Vice President and Chief Program Officer, who is a member of the Institute’s Board of Advisors. The Institute continues to hold many of its meetings of scholars in Salzburg, and the Seminar hopes to maintain a close association with it and benefit from its work.

Other speakers contributed insights from “the front line” of work in post-conflict societies: H.E. Pieter Feith gave a detailed account of his mission as the EU’s Special Representative in Kosovo, while Allan Wagner, a former foreign minister of Peru, and Claudettte Antoine Werleigh, former prime minister of Haiti, described some of the painful dilemmas of justice and reconciliation in their respective countries..

Also in The Hague, on the previous day, an equally distinguished gathering had witnessed the acceptance by Justice Goldstone of the second MacArthur Award for International Justice. The award includes $500,000 which the recipient can distribute to non-governmental organizations of his choice, and Justice Goldstone has generously chosen the IHJR as one of the five that will benefit.

In a memorable and moving speech, Mr. Goldstone described the advance of international criminal justice since his appointment as Prosecutor of the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia in 1994. He expressed his pride that his own country, South Africa, had warned Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir that if he attended the recent inauguration of President Zuma he would be arrested and handed over to the International Criminal Court; and also described how the UN Human Rights Council had, on his insistence, expanded the mandate of its inquiry into events in Gaza to cover human rights violations by all parties, before he would agree to head it.

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