Rizvic, Ena

Seemingly Small Solutions for Tremendous Trauma: RJ and Genocide

Ena Rizvic is a senior majoring in Political Science with a minor in French. During her time at DePaul, she has been an Honors Mentor, a member of Pi Sigma Alpha, a student in the Prison Exchange Inside Out Program, and studied abroad in Croatia with the Erasmus+ program. She first learned about restorative justice from volunteering with a community organization freshman year. Later, she came about the idea of applying RJ on a larger scale as a result of taking classes on Peace, Justice, and Conflict studies.

Major: Political Science

Minor: French

Senior, College of Liberal Arts and Sciences

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Abstract

It is no secret that governments often opt for punitive measures of rectifying conflict. However, indigenous people have been returning to their roots and sharing their Restorative Justice (RJ) practices to be able to celebrate community, heal trauma, and even cooperate with court systems to come up with creative sentencings for criminal offenses. While restorative justice is being used more readily on the grassroots, plenty remains to be said about its application in transitional justice during instances of international conflict. By using the Rwandan and Bosnian genocides as case studies and taking a critical look into how the international system has served justice in the past, we discover where transitional measures often failed to bring “peace.” But the combination of practices to include the needs of all stakeholders can create a more successful and restorative focus towards transitional justice beyond the limitations of conventional criminal prosecutions.

Thesis Director: Richard Farkas

Department: Political Science

Faculty Reader: Christina Rivers

Department: Political Science

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Project Poster

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Presentation