What To Apologize For?

Which crimes require redress? This is a question that I reflected on in my PhD, as I set out to compile a list of apologies for war crimes. Eventually, I settled with a simple solution: violations of Geneva constitute as war crimes in the context of armed conflict. My strategy was based on the understanding that the Geneva convention of warfare clearly stipulates what counts as a grave breach of the laws of warfare, and thus requires official redress.

However, there exist alternative approaches to deliberating and distinguishing which crimes require acknowledgement from the perpetrator country. One approach suggested by political theorist, Jeff Spinner-Halev (2012) is that redress is relevant for crimes that qualify as “enduring injustices”. In this blog article, I briefly explore what constitutes as an enduring injustice. Then, I discuss how we can employ this conceptual lens for creating a defined universe of apologies. My hope is to foster a discussion that invites other scholars in the field to improve our understanding of the circumstances in which countries are willing to acknowledge their abuses and provide healing for their victims.

Spinner-Halev (2012, p.7) defines enduring injustice as an injustice against a group that lasts for at least two generations and appears likely to continue unless addressed through changes in policy and attitudes towards it. He identifies three broad types of injustices that can turn enduring:

1.     Exile and dispossession

2.     Harsh attempts to undermine a people’s culture

3.     Community lives under pervasive discrimination

To help understand which groups face these types of injustices, he offers numerous examples. For (1), exile and dispossession, he lists Jews, prior to the existence of Israel, and Palestinians, who are currently dispossessed due to Israel’s policies in the Gaza strip.

Turkey’s attempt to drown out Kurdish culture exemplifies injustice (2), whereas the mistreatment of African Americans in the United States is an example of injustice (3).

Table 1 lists cases that exemplify the three "enduring injustices"

It is apparent why we should care about these injustices. Without addressing the injustices faced by communities, we risk their further mistreatment and hostilities between groups in a country. For the victims of these affected communities, acknowledgement of their injustices can alleviate their trauma. Importantly, this acknowledgement can initiate a dialogue in the country about improving the political and economic rights of the victims. For example, Melissa Nobles (2008) notes that in Canada, apologies by political leaders to its Aboriginal people for past mistreatment have been used to strengthen institutions of Aboriginal self-governance (p.37).

Given the importance of apologies for victim healing and minority rights, a wealth of literature exists on political apologies. However, what is lacking in a systematic inquiry into why countries apologize. I tackle the shortcoming of the literature in my PhD by compiling a dataset for political apologies in the context of armed conflict. But there is scope for an even greater contribution to our understanding of apologies with a defined universe of apologies for “enduring injustices.”

I believe that such an inquiry is possible with extending the current Minorities at risk project, which has detailed documentation on which minorities face indiscrimination from 2005 onwards. This requires two sequential steps:

1.     Expand Minorities at risk dataset to include information on minorities that are not at risk/less at risk than before. This would require checking detailed coding manuals of Varieties in Democracies (V-Dem) and United Nations database for information on how countries treat minority groups.

2.     Increase the coverage of the dataset to include minorities that have been at risk since 20th century. This can be achieved by consulting secondary sources, such as historical newspapers, books and scholarly articles.

For a list of apologies by countries to minorities for past abuses, researchers can consult the newly introduced Political Apologies across Cultures (Zoodsma and Schaafsma, 2021) dataset, which is comprehensive in its coverage of political apologies.

I am hopeful that such an undertaking is feasible with guidance from scholars in the field. I present my ideas in hopes that it fosters a dialogue about how we can collect better data and analyse the conditions in which countries are willing to offer justice to victims of their past abuses.

References

Birnir, J. K., Laitin, D. D., Wilkenfeld, J., Waguespack, D. M., Hultquist, A. S., & Gurr, T. R. (2018). Introducing the AMAR (All Minorities at Risk) Data. Journal of Conflict Resolution, 62(1), 203-226.

Coppedge, Michael, et al. (2016). V-Dem Dataset v6. 2.

Nobles, M. (2008). The politics of official apologies. Cambridge University Press.

Schaafsma, J. & Zoodsma, M. (2021). The Political Apology Database. [Date Retrieved], from the Political Apologies across Cultures website: http://www.politicalapologies.com/.

Spinner-Halev, J. (2012). Enduring injustice. Cambridge University Press.