My Neighbor, My Enemy: Justice and Community in the Aftermath of Mass Atrocity

by Eric Stover (Editor), Harvey M. Weinstein (Editor)

Tackling the crucial issue of our day--the rebuilding of countries following ethnic cleansing and genocide, this book evaluates the role of trials and tribunals with regard to social reconstruction and reconciliation. The voices of the people of Rwanda and Yugoslavia are heard through the results of extensive surveys and recorded conversations. Their thoughts of past and future controversially conclude that international and local trials have little relevance to reconciliation. The contributors find that communities interpret justice far more broadly than defined by the international community and the relationship of trauma to a desire for trials is not clear-cut. An ecological model of social reconstruction is proposed, suggesting that coordinated multi-systematic strategies must be implemented if social repair is to occur. Finally, the contributors suggest that, while trials are essential to combat impunity and punish the guilty, their strengths and limitations must be acknowledged. Eric Stover is Director of the Human Rights Center and Adjunct Professor of Public Health at the University of California, Berkeley. He was the Executive Director of Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) until December 1995. He has served on several investigations as an "Expert on Mission" to the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia in the Hague. He is author of (with photographer Gilles Peress) The Graves: Srebrenica and Vukovar (Scalo Verlag Ac, 1998), War Crimes in the Balkans: Medicine Under Siege in the former Yugoslavia 1991-1995 (Physicians for Human Rights, 1996), Landmines: A Deadly Legacy (Physicians for Human Rights, 1993) and co-author (with Christopher Joyce) of Witnesses from the Grave (Little Brown, 1992) and The Breaking of Bodies and Minds: Torture, Psychiatric Abuse, and the Health Professions (W.H. Freeman & Co., 1985) Harvey M. Weinstein is Clinical Professor in the Joint Medical Program at the University of California, Berkeley. He has done research in and taught health and human rights, refugee health and mass violence and social reconstruction. Weinstein is a member of the Advisory Council of the State Refugee Health Program, and the International Human Rights Committee and the Caucus on Refugees and Immigrants of the American Public Health Association.

372 pages, Paperback

First published November 15, 2004

About the author

Eric Stover is Faculty Director of the Human Rights Center and Adjunct Professor of Law and Public Health, University of California at Berkeley.

Stover has built the Human Rights Center into a premier interdisciplinary research and policy center that is highly regarded nationally and internationally. He is a pioneer in utilizing empirical research methods to address emerging issues in human rights and international humanitarian law.

Before coming to Berkeley in 1996, Stover served as the Executive Director of Physicians for Human Rights and the Director of the Science and Human Rights Program of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. He has served on several forensic missions to investigate mass graves as an “Expert on Mission” to the International Criminal Tribunals for the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda. In the early 1990s, Stover conducted the first research on the social and medical consequences of land mines in Cambodia and other post-war countries. His research helped launch the International Campaign to Ban Land Mines, which received the Nobel Prize in 1997. He has published six books, including The Witnesses: War Crimes and the Promises of Justice in The Hague and The Breaking of Bodies and Minds: Torture, Psychiatric Abuse, and the Health Professions. He is a member of the editorial boards of the International Journal of Transitional Justice and Human Rights Quarterly and a board member of the Crimes of War Project.