Post-Genocide Justice / Justicia Después Del Genocidio

Chair/Moderadora: Hannah Garry, Law/International Human Rights, USC

• Roddy Brett, International Relations, University of St. Andrews, UK
  “The Ríos Montt trial as a consequence of the resistance of indigenous survivors”
  (“El juicio contra Ríos Montt como consecuencia de la resistencia de los sobrevivientes indígenas”)

• Marta Elena Casaus, History, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid
  “La violación sexual de las mujeres Mayas Ixiles, Achíes y Kekchíes: Un caso comparado de racismo, genocidio y feminicidio”
  (“The rape of Ixil, Kekchí and Achí Mayan women: A comparative case of racism, genocide and femicide”)

• Jo-Marie Burt, Political Science, George Mason University
  “The Guatemalan Genocide Case in Comparative Perspective”
  (“El caso del genocidio guatemalteco en perspectiva comparada”)

Hannah Garry is founding director of USC Gould’s International Human Rights Clinic. Her areas of teaching and research include international criminal law, international human rights law, international humanitarian law and international refugee law. In 2015, Prof. Garry was the recipient of the prestigious USC Mellon Award for Faculty Mentoring Graduate Students. In terms of practice experience, Prof. Garry has been a Senior Legal Adviser to the Supreme Court Chamber in the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia and a visiting professor in the Presidency of the International Criminal Court. Before academia, she was a legal officer for the Honorable Judge Fausto Pocar in the Appeals Chamber of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia and the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda from 2004-07. Prof. Garry obtained her J.D. from Berkeley Law in 2002, her Master’s in International Affairs from Columbia University in 2001 and a master’s certificate in Forced Migration Studies with distinction from Oxford University, U.K. She is admitted to the New York Bar and is a member of the American Society of International Law where she is a corresponding editor for its International Legal Materials.

Marta Elena Casaus, Doctora en Ciencias Políticas y Sociología por la Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Profesora Titular en Historia de América por la Universidad Autónoma de Madrid. Directora del Master Europeo en Estudios Latinoamericanos: Complejidad Social y Diversidad Cultural ( España) y del Master en Gerencia para el Desarrollo Sostenible, ( Guatemala). Sus principales líneas de investigación son el estudio de las redes familiares y élites de poder en Centroamérica, estudios sobre el racismo, élites intelectuales, formación de la nación y en los últimos años investiga en historia intelectual e historia conceptual. Sus últimas publicaciones, Las redes intelectuales centroamericanas, un siglo de imaginarios nacionales 1820-1930  en coautoría con Teresa García Giráldez, la coordinación de, El lenguaje de los ismos: algunos conceptos de la modernidad en América Latina, FyG editores, 2010 y su último libro, El Libro de la Vida de Alberto Masferrer y otros escritos vitalistas, (2012), son el resultado de sus investigaciones con un amplio equipo de investigadores/as centroamericanas. Sus últimas publicaciones han girado en torno al tema sobre racismo y genocidio en Guatemala.

Jo-Marie Burt is associate professor of political science and director of Latin American Studies at George Mason University. She is also a Senior Fellow at the Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA), a human rights advocacy organization. She was awarded her Ph.D. in political science from Columbia University in 1999.

Dr. Burt has published widely on political violence, human rights and transitional justice in Latin America. In recent years, her research has focused on the ways postconflict societies confront demands for justice and accountability after atrocity. She has engaged in research and advocacy in relation to several high-profile human rights trials in the region. For example, she reported on the 2009 Fujimori trial in Peru and the 2013 Ixil genocide trial in Guatemala, organized international observation missions to these trials, and advocated on behalf of the rights of victims to access justice in both instances. She directs an ongoing research project that monitors human rights trials in Peru and Guatemala, and she writes for her blog, Rights Peru, and other media outlets, on trials in Peru, and for the International Justice Monitor and other media outlets on grave crimes cases in Guatemala.

Dr. Burt was a researcher for the Peruvian Truth and Reconciliation Commission and is a member of the advisory board of the Peruvian Forensic Anthropology Team (EPAF) and the Observatorio Luz Ibarburu, a nonprofit organization that monitors human rights prosecutions in Uruguay. She has served as an expert witness in human rights cases in courts in the United States, Peru, and before the Inter-American Court for Human Rights. She has been awarded grants from the Fulbright Foundation, the Open Society Foundations, the United States Institute of Peace, the Aspen Institute, and the Thomas J. Watson Foundation, among others. Dr. Burt is an avid user of Twitter (@jomaburt). Some of her recent publications can be viewed on Academia.edu.

Roddy Brett is Coordinator of the M.Litt in Peace and Conflict Studies, Lecturer with the School of International Relations and a member of the Centre for the Study of Terrorism and Political Violence and the Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies at the University of St. Andrews. He was awarded his Ph.D. at the University of London in 2002, and subsequently lived for twelve years in Latin America, principally in Guatemala and Colombia, working as a scholar-practitioner. His fields of research include conflict and peace studies, transitional justice, political violence, genocide studies and indigenous rights. He has been Advisor to the United Nations Development Programme in both Colombia and Guatemala, and to the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights in Guatemala. Dr. Brett also worked with the Centre for Human Rights Legal Action in Guatemala, as a member of the original team that prepared the evidence for and political strategy of the legal case filed against three former presidents of Guatemala and their military high commands of the 1980s for genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity. This led to the conviction by a Guatemalan court of former dictator General Efraín Ríos Montt in May 2013. He has published a total of eight books, including four monographs and three co-edited volumes, as well as articles on these themes. His latest book, The Origins and Dynamics of Genocide: Political Violence in Guatemala, was published by Palgrave Mac Millan in 2016.