Human rights and justice the focus of lecture

Published On Wed 5 Feb 2014 by Grant Hill

The trial of former Guatemalan dictator Rios Montt for crimes against humanity and its implications for peace and democracy in Latin America will be examined at the University of Dundee next week.

Professor Todd Landman from the University of Essex will deliver a public lecture at the D'Arcy Thompson Lecture Theatre on Wednesday, 12th February. The event is the latest instalment of the Arts & Humanities Research Institute (AHRI) Lecture and Seminar Series 2013/14.

General Rios Montt was charged with ordering the genocide of indigenous Guatemalans in the 1980s. The resulting trial made history as it was the first time a former head of state was convicted of genocide by a court in their own country. Montt was sentenced to 80 years imprisonment for genocide and crimes against humanity last May.

However, the sentence was subsequently overturned by the Constitutional Court of Guatemala, to the dismay of those campaigning for justice for members of the Ixil Maya ethnic group he was accused of ordering the deaths of during his time in office.

The constitutional court ruled that the trial should restart from the point where it stood on 19th April 2013, but human rights groups have claimed the decision highlighted that the law continued to be manipulated by vested interests decades after the end of a civil conflict.

An estimated 200,000 people were killed in Guatemala's 1960-1996 civil war, the vast majority of them indigenous Mayans. General Montt's 17 months in power in 1982-83 are believed to have been one of the most violent periods of the war.

Professor Landman said, 'Using the trial of Rios Montt as a backdrop, I am sharing new research findings for the first time, which draw on the analysis of experimental data on how the framing of human rights events affects our understanding of transitional justice.

'I have long worked both as an academic and as a practitioner in the field of human rights with a focus on measurement and assessment, and this new project is an outgrowth of that work. I am very excited to come to Dundee to share my latest thinking on human rights and justice.'

The AHRI is based within the School of Humanities at Dundee, and serves as a forum for research across the School's principal disciplines of English literature and creative writing, history, philosophy and aesthetics. Academics from Dundee will deliver the lecture programme, alongside colleagues from institutions across the UK and other countries.

Professor Landman is Executive Dean for the Faculty of Social Sciences at the University of Essex. He has published numerous books, articles, and chapters on the politics of development, democracy and human rights. He has travelled to dozens of countries working on a variety of training and capacity building projects for national and international public and private organisations including the UNDP and the World Bank.

'Framing Human Rights: Guatemala, Genocide and the Trial of Rios Montt' takes place at the D'Arcy Thompson Lecture Theatre, Tower Building, at 6pm on Wednesday, 12th February. The event is free and open to all, and tickets can be obtained by calling 01382 381296 or visiting www.dundee.ac.uk/humanities/artsandhumanitiesresearchinstitute/ for more information.

For media enquiries contact:
Grant Hill
Press Officer
University of Dundee
Nethergate, Dundee, DD1 4HN
TEL: 01382 384768
E-MAIL: g.hill@dundee.ac.uk
MOBILE: 07854 953277