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This podcast explores death and law from a rich variety of disciplinary perspectives, including law, anthropology and philosophy. The podcast explores such issues as buried goods, data protection, dignity and memory. It forms part of a broader project in the University of Aberdeen's School of Law entitled, 'Death and Law – Interdisciplinary Explorations' and is generally sponsored by the Aberdeen Humanities Fund Staff Research Award 2024.
Welcome to another episode of death in law podcast series. My name is Nevena Jevremovic. I'm a lecturer in law at the School of Law University of Aberdeen, and I'm an associate lead of the death in law interdisciplinary explorations project. It is my great pleasure today to welcome, colleagues from University of Aberdeen and colleagues from University of Strathclyde to talk about collective memory and the dead. So with me today is doctor Fransiska Louwagie, a senior lecturer in French and Francophone studies at the University of Aberdeen School of Language, Literature, Music, and Visual Culture.
I it is also my great pleasure to welcome doctor Miroslaw Sadowski, who is a senior lecturer in law at the School of Law of University of Strathclyde, and, has done wonderful work in collective memory and law. And last but not least, professor Zeray Yihdego is a professor of international law and specializes in international humanitarian law, international human rights law, and international criminal law. And with these, wonderful guests, as I mentioned, we're going to tackle questions of collective memory and, and the and the dead. So I'd like us to start with an introduction into collective memory. So what do we mean by that term, or what does that term encapsulate?
How does it relate to questions or discourse about identity? And, of course, last but not least, why is it relevant, for the death and law project? Where does collective memory, as it relates to identity, fit into this broader discourse on death and law? So, Miroslaw perhaps we can start with you for this introduction so that you can get us very comfortably set for the rest. Yes.
Thank you, Nevena, and thank you, of course, for the invitation to participate in this, unique and wonderful project. So, starting with what collective memory is, since that's, the question, du jour, if, we say so. So collective memory is an, concept from sociology. And has been officially born in the nineteen twenties. The French sociologist is actually quite often called father of modern sociology.
Maurice Halbwachs has proposed in a series of books, how the concept conceptualizes what collective memory is. So, basically, he proposed, what was back in the day and, you know, the idea is, of course, still contested. Very novel idea that, some of our memories are, not born but made, and they are made through our interactions within our social groups. So let me explain a little bit, how it works, at least in this model. So, he proposed that since we are all members of different groups, a family unit, a school unit, a work unit, a church unit, et cetera.
Well, we have certain memories that only will function on the same level within this group. I like to take, the the closest example. So, of course, the four of us would have the memory of making that podcast. And while everybody will be able to listen to that podcast, well, they will not have the memories of actually making it as we have today. This is the memory that has been born within this particular group, And, well, we can talk about it, but it will not be, widely shared.
Another example and one that my students particularly like and, of course, the viewers can choose to do so, as well, is that I always tell them, like, if, please close your eyes, for a few seconds and try to think about your very first memory. So for most of, people, usually the first memory is the first day of school. And, well, then, I ask you to start thinking about if you actually think about this memory, this first day of school memory. It is actually your proper memory, like, purely individual, and you can only think about your own experiences that happened twenty, thirty, sometimes more years ago. Or, actually, if you start thinking about it, what you construe to be a memory of that day is what your parents, grandparents have told you about it, how it has been influenced by, videos or photographs of that day.
And, also, perhaps, if you, are one of those people who still are friends with people from primary school, maybe still talk about, these first years there, and this has also impacted your memory. So, how does it work with flow? And, of course, we'll be talking widely about it, and I'll be going to to Fransiska in a minute to to explain the questions of the duty of memory, which link, directly also to the questions of the dead. But, so collective memory is, of course, very important, as Durkheim would say, well, one of the elements of the organizers of our social life. Oh, because we have commemorations, we have feasts, and, I always quite agreed with Durkheim, who who said already at the turn of the nineteenth and twentieth century that law has replaced religion, as the main organizer of social life, in modern societies.
And this is, of course, true also today. Law does, tell us what's, what is the name of the street that we live on, what is the monument that is protected, which buildings should be preserved and which can be pulled down or rearranged, how museum collections are organized, what what school curriculums look like. So there are many, many links, between collective memory and the law, and, we will be speaking about some of them, today. But I think I've spoken enough for now. So I'll leave it to Fransiska to to fill us in, on this, more minute details of collective memory now.
Oh, thank you. Thank you very much. And thank you, Nevena as well. I think, so, Miroslaw has, you know, given some very important, conceptual background in in talking also about these interactions between the individual and the collective. And then, well, interestingly, where the law comes in is is where that, memory, that collective memory that Miroslaw was talking about becomes more formalized and becomes gains a slightly more normative character.
So there is, very often when we talk about collective memory, we will also talk about different regimes of memory or different stages of memory. And so it's interesting to see how memory has been, you know, shaping up over the decades, and very often the holocaust is considered to be a paradigmatic case in this that has an influence how we think about other, historical events that link, that link to to crimes against humanity and then link to that theme, of of law and the dead. Yeah? And so the notion of of duty of memory is an interesting one in in this context. Very often, in the immediate aftermath of an event, there is a kind of drive on the level of the state to look to the future, to maybe not engage with the memory of the past.
And so in that context then, the duty of memory is then often seen as a way to acknowledge what happened in the past. So it's a kind of state discourse. Though initially, it it it is it very often comes from a kind of bottom up perspective of actors and agents of memory who feel that that the past, should be acknowledged. But over time, it's become also this kind of state and media, discourse. And, obviously, on the state level is done where where the where the law comes in.
Yeah? And so it's about acknowledging the past, going against this notion of state amnesia to a certain extent, and and have a justice for the victims by acknowledging, what happened, to them. And it's it's very important sometimes in that construction of identity that we were mentioning that that what happened in the past is, being acknowledged. But very often, the state also has a number of additional, aims beyond beyond that notion of justice and is also thinking about founding a common identity, asserting values that were perhaps not recognized in the past and show you know, distancing themselves from a certain past. And and also, you know, we I'm sure we will come to case studies later on, but trying to acknowledge maybe the memories of minorities and so forth.
So there's a whole political agenda that sits behind it. And that also makes that some of this duty of memory can be sometimes controversial because, law is also about power. So whose memories are being acknowledged, and how and to to what to what effect and what might be the kind of downsides of of of of engaging in such a process. I think discussion around collective memory is quite powerful because it is a question, I think, of how we engage with the past and how we engage with the dead of the past and whose memory survives and in what shape and then shapes are are present. So we are I think it seems to me, again, as I immediately respond to what you've just said, that through this collective memory, we are continuously in some process of interpretation, some process of understanding our own, conceptions and our the frames of our horizons where we sit in the presence and then understanding the frames of horizons, of of the past.
Law, as you as you said, Fransiska, is is also about power and and has quite a can be quite instrumental in determining the dominant voices in in that. But then we have literature and art and humanities that perhaps diversify, for lack of better words, those those horizons. And I think, it is only natural for this to be an interdisciplinary, interdisciplinary endeavour, an endeavour that brings these different perspectives into, into one. So so, it's it's it's quite a fascinating area, really. But, of course, the the questions of collective memory are mostly kind of come to the forefront when we are faced with situations of, some act of violence.
And that inevitably then asks the question of what is the link between collective memory and and transitional justice, especially in relation to the state's interference in shaping that questions of identity, the future, the path the path forward. So perhaps, Miroslaw, we can go back briefly to you, for this link between collective memory and and transitional transitional justice. Thank you. Thank you, Nevena. Yes.
Of course. In general, I stated these intersections between collective memory, human rights, and transitional justice are something that that, quite often, people think here, as the most visible because, we we talked about, before, there's these little, links between collective memory and, law such as street names. But, of course, we we we tend to think about collective memory and law in terms of these big national or sometimes even supranational events and, their aftermath. And the aftermath is precisely when, transitional justice comes in. So, I understand that, that the concept might not be, known to all, so I'll just briefly introduce it.
So transitional justice is, let's say, for instance, set of social legal processes that follow, some sort of traumatic transitions from one event to another. So, typically, we have a war. So so for example, like, the current war in, in Ukraine. If, and hopefully, when it, finishes, one day, we will have to, arrange certain processes of transitional justice. Or, more most often in, the late twentieth century, we had the processes of transitional justice following transitions from one political regime to the other.
So, obviously, these are typically are from a transitions to from the non democratic regime to a democratic regime. So think, Latin America in the nineteen seventies and nineteen eighties or, Central And Eastern Europe, for in, 1989 and in the following years. So what happens, when we have such a transition from one, regime to another is that, of course, if it was a, nondemocratic regime, well, people so human rights have been abused. People's, rights have been impacted. There may have been forced disappearances.
They may have been political prisoners. They may have been collaborators, with, the previous regime. Well, the society as the collective needs to somehow deal with this, and a law needs to, respond how and when to deal with this. So we call this collectively, transitional justice processes. And, well, in different parts of the world, they turn take on different forms.
So our Central, and Eastern Europe has opted for a process that's known as lustration. So this is a process of administrative vetting, whether or not somebody has collaborated with the previous regime. And each and every country from, Eastern Germany, which, of course, became, part of the reunited, Wunderscrafublik, has, two, Poland, Hungary, and, other places. Each country has adopted a different form and a different way of organizing this. The basic premise is that, for certain, for certain, places within the public administration or for in some countries also for politically elected offices, the person that needs to be verified.
So what it means that the, state organization that takes care of the archive usually, very particularly named, institutes of national memory. That's how they call it in quite a few countries. They are responsible for the archives, and then they will vet the person and see whether or not they collaborated. So if, the person lied, when, applying for an office, well, then they may be barred from this office completely. They may have to face a fine, and in certain cases, they may not be able to take this office at all.
In sent in South America, we had a different approach. Those were truth and called truth commissions or in certain cases, truth and reconciliation commissions. The most famous one was actually, some of you may remember that, from The Republic Of South Africa. However, Latin American countries have been engaging with these, truth commission processes, much earlier, already in the nineteen seventies. So just very briefly, truth and reconciliation commissions or just truth commissions depending on their scope, each country can decide differently here, have, had a responsibility of finding out the truth, and, creating a one official narrative that would be then enshrined in the national in the collective memory.
And this would be the only way to do it would be through, granting, amnesty to the perpetrators or, at least promising amnesty to the perpetrators if they came and, spoke. Quite often, what happened in Latin America was that when the regime before the regime change as one of as one of the elements of the regime change, was granting of this amnesty already. So only then, would, the the idea was only then the perpetrators could have, been persuaded to come and actually speak. In some places, it worked. In some places, amnesties were revoked.
In some places like Brazil, which was last country to engage, in a truth commission only in 2010s, actually, it was quite difficult, because the amnesty stayed in place, and it was many years since, the events in question. Of course, other places around the world have engaged in some forms of transitional justice. So Iraq, for example, is the only plain asylum of Central And Eastern Europe which decided to have lustration after, the change of the regime in 02/2003. It was called the De-Ba'athification, from the Ba'ath party, so to Saddam Hussein's party, which proves equally or even more problematic administration processes in Central, and Eastern Europe. Truth commissions have been applied also in places which have not undertaken a regime change such as Canada and Australia, and they were, they're engaged, in processes of reconciliation with the indigenous communities there.
There are also, in some places we can speak of transitional justice when we have a process of transition from one nondemocratic regime to the next. It's, for example, in Iran in the seventies. We have studied the processes that took place with my Iranian colleague, and, it's actually also what we might call, from a theoretical perspective, transitional justice. But, of course, the end result is another non democratic regime. Perfect.
Thank you. And, obviously, when we when we speak of Europe and when we speak of or or countries in Eastern Europe or Western Balkans and the changes in regime, Bosnia And Herzegovina that had a very violent, you know, transition from one system to another, where the questions of or where we see, this interplay between the role of international frameworks, international humanitarian law, international human rights law, international criminal law, the questions of collective memory and and transitional justice transitional justice play out. Bosnia and Herzegovina is not the only the only example, but it is, it is quite, a a rich one. And for the purpose of our podcast, does help us transition to the questions of how, and to what extent, international human humanitarian law, international human rights law, and international criminal law. What role do they do they play in the in this broader framework of collective memory and dead?
And for that, I'm going to turn to to Zeray. The way in which international law deals with the dead, the law can be explained within the context of international humanitarian law, international human rights law, and international criminal law. But, certainly, these are not the only legal areas, that are relevant to the topic we are discussing today. As far as, just framing the issue is concerned, well, it is very important to clarify that international humanitarian law is a field of laws that regulates the behaviour of warring parties bring and in connection to armed conflict. And the armed conflict will might be an international or non international.
It's very much about setting out, standards of behaviour, with which all warring parties must must must must comply. This includes, the principle of humanity, proportionality, necessity, and the likes. And, conversely, international human rights law is about the protection and promotion of, the rights of the individual in many aspects, the right to life, the right to divinity, the right to, privacy, the right to, establish family, for example, the right to religion, and and the likes. So while international humanitarian law apply applies during wartime or in connection to armed conflict, international human rights law apply during peacetime and wartime. So there is there is a difference.
And, also, complementarity, as far as the two legal regimes is concerned. And the third one, international criminal law, is very much about enforcement. So when the norms of international humanitarian law and international human rights law are breached by individuals as per international humanitarian law as per international criminal law, this comes with individual, criminal responsibility. So it's about punishment. It's about holding those violators the fundamental norms of humanitarian law or international liberal rights law to account.
So both of them, the three of them are different, but also interrelated in in in many ways. So why are they relevant to the topic that we are talking about today, particularly the dead and the law? Well, all of them are dedicated to protecting the dead, from different perspectives. The humanitarian law, is fully dedicated to protect and, defend dignity, human dignity, including, the dignity of the dead. And we have several conventions, including the Geneva Conventions.
There are there are additional protocols, that are dedicated quite a series of obligations relevant to the protection of the dead, and their property. International human rights law, though, well, basically, the basic rights of an individual such as the right to privacy, the right to life, the right to, religion, and and the right to family life, et cetera, are relevant to to this topic. And in particular, the the convention on the prohibition of enforced disappearance disappearances have got a a specific duty to to deal with with the dead when it comes to disappearance disappearances and people who have who have lost or who have have been disappeared by by government forces or others. And when it comes to international law, the ICC statute is quite clear, that, this kind of this kind of behaviour or abusing a dead body, is a war crime. So all of them, I can say that, come up with the notion of protecting the dead and and their properties.
And I would also say that, by preserving and protecting the dead, including their burial places and the likes, they contribute they contribute to the idea of collective memory. Although they don't direct directly deal with collective memory, but they facilitate, and help to, to promote and understand collective memory. Can you tell us a little bit more of where you see the relationship between that and and the questions of of collective memory and and and cultural identity? So international humanitarian law, and its many conventions and protocols and practices, tells us that the dead, must be respected at all times, during or after an armoured conflict. The dead bodies must not be abused, and the conventions came came up with a a series of, duties in order to preserve and protect the victims of armed conflict.
I must I must say that, the deceased or the dead are considered for humanitarian law purpose as as victims of armed conflict. And it doesn't matter whether the dead is your own or or they belong to to the enemy or the adversary, whether combatant or civilians, does not really matter. Everyone is covered. If someone dies as a result of armed conflict or in connection to armed conflict, they are they are they have to be considered as victims and therefore, deserve to be dignified and respectful treatment. And and and what this means is that warring parties to a conflict must comply with a series of obligations, including the the duty to protect and defend dead bodies.
So abusing, mutilating, dragging dead bodies is strictly prohibited in international international humanitarian law. There is also, the duty to find and search and identify dead bodies and, return them when appropriate to where they belong, their families, to the to the right party. And and in addition to this, warring parties must also follow serious and clear guidelines regarding burials, and and international humanitarian law advocates for an individual burial rather than collective. Okay? Unless, some exceptional circumstance emerge such as hygiene and, health concerns for for all concerned.
And and, also, there is a duty to to list and mark graves of of of victims. What this means is that warring parties who deal with, dead bodies and and and graves must register and mark grave places. And they must also ensure that the burial is conducted in accordance with religious and and and nationality requirements. So, a random burial, without considering the religion, culture, nationality of the the victim is not is not is not allowed. So the duties goes on.
So there are quite a lot of, duties to do with respecting the dead body, recording, identifying, information sharing, and marking and maintaining the graves as well. So quite comprehensive, obligations that arise from international humanitarian law. I believe, this, these obligations are also supported by international human international human rights law because international human human rights law also advocates the right to dignity, the right to privacy, the right to religion and culture. And these have been enshrined in many conventions such as the international covenant on civil and political rights, the Torture Convention, the enforced disappearances convention, and also the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948 also enshrined or or recognized these fundamental, norms of human rights law. And, therefore, as as the special reporter on human rights on this topic said, the right the the human rights of people does not really end, when, people die.
It it it continues to protect protect the people, even after after death. And what this means is that once people die, their dead body and their their their their their will, their property, must be respected, must be treated in a dignified and respectful manner. And and and and what this means is that international humanitarian law and international human rights law share the same values when it comes to to human human dignity and respect for the dead and and, as a prohibition of outrageous behaviour toward this toward dead bodies. And as we know, common articles in Geneva Conventions try to deal with with the gap between international humanitarian law and human rights law by including some aspects of human rights law to international humanitarian law. It requires basic decency, basic human rights, and and humanity in general.
So if we look at this if you look at the the the topic we are dealing with today from both areas of international international law, I think we can safely say that both areas promote, human dignity and respect for the dead, ways of doing armed conflict or outside armed conflict. International international criminal law reinforces this by punishing so she can meet violations serious violations of international humanitarian or international human rights law to do with, dead bodies. So abusing, mutilating, degrading human bodies, considered a war crime. And in some cases, as as are shown in the, Chris Christie case dealt with by the international criminal tribunal for Yugoslavia, They can also be used as evidence of, the commission of genocide. So these three combined, I would say that, not only that they protect dead bodies, they they promote human dignity, they but also, facilitate, the preservation of collective memory because international humanitarian in particular is fully dedicated to promoting the marking of graves, the identification of victims, the sharing of information between relevant parties, countries, and families, and, also, the maintenance the maintenance of graves, which is crucial for, historians, tourists, researchers, and and families.
And, therefore, I can clearly see the connection between these three areas of international law and the notion of collective memory. Thank you, Zeray. I think that that positions us very nicely to to talk about situations where the framework that you've described does not necessarily live up to its, noble values of protecting the dignity and life and and and and and people. Then, you know, the the states come in afterwards and and through memory laws, something that is Fransiska's area of of research and expertise try to, from my understanding, place a framework for discourse about the past and what has happened in the past. So, Fransiska, maybe we can turn to you now, to to to help us understand a little bit more the intergenerational perspectives and memory laws, and and how does that feature, in your research as well, specifically?
Yes. I think you made a very useful point, in response to what Zeray was saying in in saying also that that it's sometimes hard, for in practice to live up to these noble values, and it ties back also, I think, with some of what Miroslaw was saying about transitional justice and its ambitions, which also can sometimes fall short if the if the political regime doesn't doesn't quite follow those things. But so those connections to, collective memory that Zeray was mentioning are are very interesting. And I think in this case, for instance, the example of Rwanda is is is very interesting because in that's a case where the where the question of how to treat the debt is linked very closely to the question of collective memory and is also linked very closely to the question of, transitional, justice and how how all that has has worked out. So, research on Rwanda suggests that that the state has gradually forged an official narrative about about the nineteen ninety four genocide, and that that that narrative has shifted, a little bit over time.
Yeah. And so it has placed an emphasis on on, you know, the the official label for the genocide is the nineteen ninety four genocide against the Tutsi, and that has its implications in terms of what memory is being privileged as part of commemoration and as part of collective memory and and where maybe, you know, the memory of other victims might sit, and that has then been enshrined in law about genocide ideology. And and, if if there is a question of that official narrative, then then there, you know, there there might be accusations of, of of supporting genocide ideology if, for instance, people, draw attention also to victims and other ethnic groups, like like the Hutu and the Twa. So there's a law there that that aims to strengthen national unity, by by having a strong single narrative of the genocide. But there is some debate about whether that allows everyone's memory to find a a public space.
And there is also some debate about to what extent those laws are maybe also used to to restrict civic freedom and and freedom of expression. So it's it's quite, quite a difficult area. And it's interesting, I think, in its links to that question, that was being mentioned about, how to treat the death. There were immense challenges because of the number of bodies. They are and the bodies are you know, there is obviously an an a a respect for the bodies, but the bodies are also the memorials.
So people can can commemorate at those memorials as as Zeray was saying. But there are different stakes again about who is buried where. Are the victims being identified? Can they be identified? What if they were identified?
But it turns out that some of the perpetrators are maybe mixed with the victims because sometimes it's not not easy to know who was whom people might have changed clothes. So it's quite, you know, quite difficult to recognize, and sometimes people are found on these, you know, so much later, if there were if there, if if the the justice process hasn't allowed to to to find or or to retrieve bodies, and bodies are still being found. Now so that's, that's a key question, and it ties in also with how well, you know, the question of how well transitional justice has worked. So they they, had had a very, you know, specific case with the Gacaca courts, in Rwanda. And and, again, there are questions about how these have been used.
So, we we had you know, we heard about the transition from nondemocratic to democratic regime and and and the question of amnesty. So in in the case of the Gacaca Courts, there has been, you know, a bit of an evolution towards, retributive justice with those courts, and and and so they they they functioned in a slightly different manner. Again, there has been, you know, there have been questions raised internationally about about about how how well, or what purposes let's say, what purposes those those courts served on a local level in terms of in terms of maybe also working, you know, working through power relationships or or through individual conflicts. So there is there is a lot of, you know, a lot of moving sands in those in those areas that makes it very hard even if people want, obviously, to to honour the dead, and that is still a key part, of Rwandan culture. In that sense, it might also be relevant to to mention some discussions that that have been also, researched around, how the bodies are then being buried and presented, because sometimes there is, a willingness also to use to use the bodies as evidence, yeah, which is perhaps something that in other cases, we you know, those displays of of bodies or objects have perhaps, no long are perhaps no longer so prominent in other contexts such as the holocaust, yeah, where we focus more on on on the dignity of the victims as they were when they were alive, but in a context where there is still memory debates, bodies might serve as proof and skulls to show how they were have been, you know, damaged.
So and and that might then also not fit entirely with Rwandan culture around how to treat the dead. So there are different different sensitivities, and I think so it it's an interesting case study to see how we go from the very good principles of the law to practical tensions, political tensions, and and how how people live within that. And, obviously, the the, you know, the regime in Rwanda has been relatively stable, has achieved a number of of, you know, elements of progress that internationally are seen as very positive. So there is also that tension about how where memory, collective memory, justice sits within the broader international relations that that that, that countries may may have and that the international community may have. The burial sites, part of collective memory in in in Bosnia, but also in in in other places that are sites for identity and sites for collective grief.
As as you mentioned, you know, the the the being able to bury the dead, being able to do that with aligns with your religion and culture, and and being able to go through that grief process is so is one of the fundamental parts of our humanity, and and it it it it it it deserves, right, to be respected respected as such, and it is often, I think, even, even more devastating when that is not when that is not the case. So So so maybe, again, I'll I'll make a just a brief, theoretical, comment first. So so there's this actual, concept right now that I actually partake in, that, of the right to memory that both the dead and the living have a different facets of, the right to memory. And I like to to tell say that, this right is composed of actually two, separate rights, the right to evoking and the right to forgetting, and then each of these is, again, composed of two rights. So when it comes to the right to evoking, we have the right to remember.
So this is, this right that our memories, be that our individual, but most likely of our group, be that our minority group, our religious group, in a modern democratic society, they should be included somehow in the official narrative. And, of course, this sticks, to the to the protection, for example, of, our heritage, heritage of all humanity, constructing monuments and museums after particular conflicts. And, while the right to to to memory in general is, contested, theoretically as as those sources of modern, arguments for the different human rights are. But, you you mentioned, previously, Nevena that the the, Al Mahdi case. And, there, the Al Mahdi case was, the the, case in 2016 before the International Criminal Court.
And it's the first case in in the history of international law where, just destroying, cultural heritage was considered, to be a sole basis for a war crime on the basis of the Rome Statute. Previously, we had, cases before the ECTY, for example, for for the shelling of Dubrovnik and among others, where destruction of cultural heritage was part, of a war crime. However, here, ICC tells us, that, in this case, mister Al Mahdi, who are part of the Islamic religious police, in, the city of Timbuktu in Mali, the who destroyed a number of mausoleums of which were venerated by the local population, well, the the ICC, decided that he was guilty of committing a war crime. And, quite, solely on the basis that these were important, not only also for for the, local community, but also for the all of humanity. Because, 10 out of 12, if I remember correctly, of those mausoleums were on the UNESCO World Heritage list.
And quite interestingly here, looking aside the more immediate details of the case, which will not be relevant, for for for our discussion today, but quite interestingly, ICC in reparations also gave a symbolic €1 of reparations to UNESCO, and, to symbolize that by this destruction, all of humanity was impacted, and the person who destroyed, World Heritage, also is responsible for reparations to all of humanity because, our humanity was impacted. So just, going very quickly, so that, we can finish with memory loss. I mentioned that the three other elements of the right memory, and and they also, show us this interplay between the living and the dead. And in particular, so I spoke about the right to remember, but there's also the right to be remembered. And, this is, more commonly known as the right to truth, which stems from the jurisprudence of the Inter American Court of Human Rights.
And, the particular, facets of the undemocratic regimes, in South America were forced disappearances, so that, people were not just killed, en masse, but the but the disease dissidents were, also forcibly disappeared. So so to to give an example from Argentina, for people were taken on helicopters over the ocean and thrown out, so that's their bodies could never be found out. So, the number of countries in South America after, the democratic transition, they said, when the families wanted to know what happened with certain people, that were imprisoned by the regime and then, well, fell out of the face, of the world, the the number of states, they said, well, we moved, but there's nothing there, in the archives, so we just stop looking. And then comes in the international in the either, the American cause of human rights, And they say, no. Actually, you have the right to these people and also the dead have the right to truth.
So the state have to active has to actively engage in searching and looking for the fates. So, this is very interesting concept because, of course, it is protecting the rights of the living who want to know what happened to, the family members, friends, et cetera, but also protects the rights of the dead because that they are not disappeared completely and forever that, actually, we may, realize what, happened to them and establish their fate. So just to finish off, so, of course, we also have the right to be to forget and the right to be forgotten. The right to forget is quite an interesting one, because it's, about those, about and that this comes out, quite often in our transitional justice that we oftentimes have this very western perspectives on how people should mourn, and, come back after trauma, how society should heal. And, there are a number of studies, especially in, Cambodia, which, of course, suffered a huge genocide under the Khmer Rouge regime where a number of museums were constructed in this very European western way, and they obviously were constructed with, the faith, thoughts of, the western audience in mind.
However, the local populations quite often said that, who are Buddhist among other, religious groups, that actually they would prefer to forget and that they should have this right to forget and not be reminded all the time in this very western world about way about the atrocities that happened. And last but not least, we have the right to be forgotten, which is an individual right, that can be exercised, right now within the, the European jurisdiction, so that you, can have certain, elements, of, news, relating to yourself. I don't think there are cases relating to family members, but I'm pretty sure we will see them quite sure quite soon, that, certain data should be removed from search engines. So, basically, removing them from our collective memory because we can't if we cannot find something on Google, well, then it does not exist. Right?
It has an interesting perspective, and it will be interesting to see how how this right is further developed, because I'm pretty sure that we'll see, some cases where family members of the deceased will want certain information to be removed from the search engines. So as I said, four facets of, of the right to memory, very, begin to play between the rise of the dead, rise of the living, and how the states can and should reply, involving various jurisdictions and, also the the electronic means, that we use so often. I I thought it was fascinating that Google is our benchmark for collective memory. So whether we can search something on Google if it doesn't exist, it's not part of our but but I think yeah. So, I mean, not a smooth transition, but there is something to be said then about the way in which we collectively handle the past for lack of better word.
And and that would be, you know, I guess, a cue for Fransiska to tell us a little bit more about the memory loss, and, especially, as as they have been deployed in France, where I understand, you know, they have been used as an attempt to regulate perceptions of the past as we've discussed in in preparation for the podcast. So, Fransiska, perhaps you can, you can tell us a little bit more more about that. Sure. I'll try to do that then. And, Miroslaw feel free to jump in as well as I know you've also, worked, worked on this.
So I think, memory laws are another way of thinking about collective memory, and I think also about the rights of the living and the rights the rights of the dead because who's, you know, whose memory is is is enshrined, in law. And so you mentioned the case study of France, which is, an interesting one. And, obviously, it sits in a broader European context. But, so France has had a number of laws with which then, you know, gradually have been called, memory laws. And so the initial the the first one, yeah, was about, you know, prohibiting holocaust denial.
And and that was in a, you know, in a sensitive context where where there was, you know, an issue with holocaust denial. And so it was directed against against certain, certain groupings. But there was also a backlash, from historians, which I I know is something that Miroslaw has also, investigated. So because they also felt that it was a limitation of free speech, and and those debates actually grew as as as additional memory laws were added. And so, there's you know, they they actually covered quite different quite different things at times.
So one was more about, the recognition of of the Algerian war as a war, which was then given certain rights to the people who fought in it because they were then veterans. There was one about the recognition of the Armenian genocide. There was one about, the recognition of, western, slavery, as as a crime against humanity. And there was also then, a very controversial one in 2005 that recognized, yeah, that that asked to recognize, the contributions of of those that had come back from the colonies and and that had a quite a controversial element also about teaching about the benefits of colonialism in schools. Yeah.
So that was done, a public you know, a subject, again, of of debate and the question whether whether law can can dictate how we think about the past and how we educate about the past, especially if if there is there is a sense that this is influenced by certain groups, that certain right wing groups, for instance, want certain recognitions of of colonialism or or or those that were that were part of it. Also the other questions in France about about national unity and then whether, some of these laws maybe are are, you know, are pushed for, by minorities. And France has a quite a specific model for thinking about citizenship that does not so much, look at multiculturalism. So there is there are different, different stakes in this. And so historian so to a certain extent, historians have felt that that these laws were unhelpful.
They're not all contested to the same extent, but there is a kind of question over how helpful they are, whether, you know, general laws of of of, you know, about hate speech and free speech would be would be enough. Yeah. That's that's a question. And I think there's also a a question because the some of the historians responded by saying we don't all only have, you know, a duty of memory, but we also have a duty of history, and we need to be able to to to do the research that we that we feel we need to do and to we need to be able to do it freely. So one of the unfortunate effects that has been identified by a number of French historians is also that these these kind of laws created an opposition between memory and history, whilst memory studies would normally, you know, be an area where these can be reconciled and where historians can investigate memory and and and, you know, there's there's a kind of dialogue that is necessary, in the field.
There's also been some questions from historians about how how useful some of these laws are and what what their intent is. Yeah. If if it's quickly after the event, you can say it's about, you know, some of the questions we talked about, justice and targeting criminals. If it's farther back in the past, it it might create, you know, some questions about about, you know, competition between victims and who gets who gets a voice. So there's there's, yeah, there's different risks.
And then I think those risks are also, maybe, exacerbated by examples and and maybe more nationalist governments and other areas of Europe where where where laws are used to rewrite the past and maybe write out difficult elements of the past or complicities of the past and that then goes against, you know, the the logic, of of of the state acknowledging a difficult past through those laws or recognizing or apologizing for what happened in the past. So we have different logics, and in a way you could maybe also say that there's a bit of a culture war around around such laws and and and around, around memory studies. And so part of it might be good intentions, but part of it might also be quite, you know, a slippery slope in terms of in terms of where where this leads us. And, ultimately, I I think, you know, you could in a way think that law has the upper hand. I think there's also there may be a movement in which we will then also study those laws as instances of memory, rather than taking them as an as an absolute, point of reference.
So it's it's important that that, yeah, that that the disciplines can interact. And as you mentioned before, you know, arts and humanities have also an important role to play in having critical voices. And, thank you very much. We're I think that that is a wonderful ending to to our or or as much as we can have, an ending in the in the context of this discussion, but it does kind of round, I think, nicely what what we've talked about, or the the themes and the topics that we've opened up in today's podcast, and very often with a complex theme such as such as this one, that's, the most that we can do, open up paths and and see where where, these different multiple strands of dialogue are, and and hope that, you know, in, these will somehow be helpful for for the future for the future dialogues on on these very same same issues. I want to say thank you to the three of you for a wonderful discussion.
I, look forward to exploring these issues with you as the project, continues. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for the invitation. Thanks very much.