How should we think of justice? Lessons from South Sudan

In the third of the British Academy’s ‘Global Perspectives’ series, renowned author and commentator on African politics and society Mahmood Mamdani will consider How should we think of justice? Lessons from South Sudan.

The demand for an end to impunity is today at the forefront of the call for an international regime of criminal justice. There are two problems with this demand: the first is that it translates the call for a universal norm into a ‘one-size-fits-all’ prescription, regardless of context; the second is that it reduces all violence to criminal violence, making it a matter of strictly individual responsibility. Mahmood’s objective in this lecture will be to distinguish criminal from political violence and criminal from political justice and explain the stakes involved in not doing so.

Speaker: Professor Mahmood Mamdani, Herbert Lehman Professor of Government, Columbia University
Chair: Professor Ash Amin CBE FBA, Foreign Secretary and Vice-President, British Academy

FREE. Registration required at www.britac.ac.uk/events/global-perspectiveshow-should-we-think-justice-lessons-south-sudan