Crime and Compensation in North Africa
A Social Anthropology Essay
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Beschreibung
As the 21st century began, Algeria, Morocco, and North Sudan launched some much-publicised “reconciliation” policies, or, in the case of North Sudan, “pacification” policies. Algeria, following its Clemency policy (1995) and Civil Concord Law (1999), held a referendum in 2005 and subsequently implemented the measures of its Charter for Peace and National Reconciliation. This charter is Algeria’s latest policy aimed at settling the accounts of a murderous decade (1990s) marked by opposition between the state and armed Islamic groups. In Morocco, an arbitration committee was set up in 1999, followed by the Equity and Reconciliation Commission in 2004, to turn the page on the “Years of Lead”—a period during the rule of King Hassan II when state crimes such as torture, imprisonment, and murder were committed. Finally, in Sudan (North Sudan since 2011), peace negotiations were held in 1989 and a peace process has been ongoing since 2005, with an aim to resolve violent conflicts and war crimes that are shaking Darfur and North Kordofan. At the centre of all these reconciliation and pacification mechanisms lies a practice that has been scarcely studied: (monetary) compensation for the crimes committed.
Shedding light on this under-studied topic from the North African field, this volume investigates: What meanings can compensation have when it is aimed at repairing crimes? Is it necessary, sufficient, or admissible? How can it be implemented and accepted by the victims themselves and by society? These questions about compensation lead the reader through discussions on the nature of crime, punishment, reparation, reconciliation, and the way these concepts were and are now understood in these three North African countries.
Yazid Ben Hounet is a social anthropologist and research fellow at the Centre National de Recherche Scientifique and member of the Laboratoire d’Anthropologie Sociale (CNRS, Collège de France, EHESS). His research concerns the intersection of legal and political anthropology, particularly in Muslim contexts.
As the 21st century began, Algeria, Morocco, and North Sudan launched some much-publicised “reconciliation” policies, or, in the case of North Sudan, “pacification” policies. Algeria, following its Clemency policy (1995) and Civil Concord Law (1999), held a referendum in 2005 and subsequently implemented the measures of its Charter for Peace and National Reconciliation. This charter is Algeria’s latest policy aimed at settling the accounts of a murderous decade (1990s) between the state and armed Islamic groups. In Morocco, an arbitration committee was set up in 1999, followed by the Equity and Reconciliation Commission in 2004, to turn the page on the “Years of Lead”—a period during the rule of King Hassan II during which state crimes such as torture, imprisonment, and murder were committed. Finally, in Sudan (North Sudan since 2011), peace negotiations were held in 1989 and a peace process has been ongoing since 2005, with an aim to resolve violent conflicts and war crimes that are shaking Darfur and North Kordofan. At the centre of all these reconciliation and pacification mechanisms lies a practice that has been scarcely studied: (monetary) compensation for the crimes committed.
Shedding light on this under-studied topic from the North African field, this volume investigates: What meanings can compensation have when it is aimed at repairing crimes? Is it necessary, sufficient, or admissible? How can it be implemented and accepted by the victims themselves and by society? These questions about compensation lead the reader through discussions on the nature of crime, punishment, reparation, reconciliation, and the way these concepts were and are now understood in these three North African countries.
Explores the relationship between compensation and reconciliation in the light of practices of conflict settlement informed by Islamic normativity and local practice Reassesses the relationship of several components of conflict settlement, including international and domestic dimensions, religious impacts, and various local legal practices A timely and long-lasting contribution to research on national reconciliation policies in Anthropology, Legal Studies, Area Studies, and beyond
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Yazid Ben Hounet
Themen in »Crime and Compensation in North Africa«
reparation justice reconciliation pacification trauma Morocco Algeria North Sudan
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"Based on long-term ethnographic fieldwork and an intimate knowledge of North Africa, this book presents a detailed insight into the dynamics of conflict resolution among the region’s tribal people. It raises important questions about the nature of tribes, the role and nature of assessments of intention in criminal and other legal processes, and the relationship between processes of reconciliation, mediation, reparations, and compensation. It should interest any scholar of North Africa and of tribal people."
— Fernanda Pirie, Professor of the Anthropology of Law, Centre for Socio-Legal Studies, University of Oxford, UK
"This book illuminates compensation as an essential element of non-violent settlement of conflicts involving human damage and homicide and examines its interplay with other components of the repertoire of conflict management. Using thick ethnographic data from three North African countries, it details how these components co-constitute one another at grassroots and national levels. Moreover, it impressively shows how such interrelatedness translates into politics of reconciliation after incidents of serious state injustice."
— Bertram Turner, Senior Researcher, Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology, Halle (Saale), Germany
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