Klaus Bachmann Livres

The narrative explores Rwanda's rich history, beginning with the precolonial abanyiginya kingdom and continuing through German and Belgian colonization. It delves into the country's journey to independence, the tragic events of the 1994 genocide, and the subsequent efforts at reconstruction. The account extends to contemporary Rwanda, offering insights into its evolution and resilience over time.

Offering the first balanced and in depth analysis of the International Criminal Tribunals, the volume provides an important insight into what lessons have been learned, and how a deeper understanding of the successes and failures can benefit the international legal community in the future.

In this volume, six experts from Europe and Africa present new insights from the field about various aspects of Germany’s colonial rule in Africa, raising doubt about the hitherto interpretations of some important events. The outbreak of violence in Rwanda 1904 was neither an anti-colonial Hutu uprising nor the result of a royal court intrigue against German rule, but instead a response to raids, the White Father missionaries had carried out against the local population. German colonialism in Rwanda was much less benevolent than it is today recalled in Rwanda, because its main edge was directed against the population in the North whose collective memory has been marginalized in the royal abanyiginya narrative, under colonial rule and after the genocide. Other chapters deal with the link between colonial boundaries and ethnic conflict and the counter-intuitive consequences of the German/Namibian settlement about colonial atrocities against the Herero and Nama.

International Criminal Tribunals do not only do justice and judge the perpetrators of the most heinous crimes. This book present the first part of the results of a five-year international research project, based on field research in ten European and African countries.

Between 1904 and 1907, German soldiers, settlers and mercenaries committed mass murder in Africa. Can this be considered the first genocide of the 20th century? Was it a forecast of the Third Reich’s extermination policy in Central and Eastern Europe? This book provides the answer. Based on extensive archival and library research in Tanzania, Namibia, South Africa, Germany and Poland as well as on the most recent and up-to-date jurisprudence of international criminal tribunals, the renowned historian and political scientist Klaus Bachmann paints a new and surprising picture of the events and their legal significance, which many will find disturbing and provocative. It abolishes many well-established interpretations about German colonialism and its alleged links with the Third Reich and provides a new and intriguing contribution to the current post-colonial debate.

This book takes stock of opinion polls in communist and post-communist states, presents specific case studies and answers the question how opinion polls under conditions of censorship and lack of media pluralism differ from those in liberal democratic societies. These polls were mostly used by the ruling establishment to observe shifts in popular opinion and to anticipate protests. They were hardly presented publicly to inform citizens about the prevailing views in their society. Today, these polls often display stories about everyday life, opinion shifts and the legitimacy of state institutions which cannot be derived from other sources.

The book shows how transitional justice experiences influence domestic change and what the role of the international community in these processes is. It is divided into three thematic parts. The first one presents regional and local transitional justice efforts, aiming at showing different mechanisms implemented within transitional justice mechanisms. The following part deals with the role and impact of international criminal tribunals set up to prosecute grave human rights abuses. The third part is devoted to the role of the international community in mass atrocity crimes prevention. The contributions prove that transitional justice measures are not universal. Rather, they must be characterized by the principle of local ownership and be crafted to circumstances on the ground.

The current crisis in Ukraine has revealed a striking lack of background knowledge about Ukraine’s history and politics among West European politicians, journalists, intellectuals and even many academics. In this book, experts from Poland, Ukraine, the US, Russia and Western Europe fill the gap between an omnipresent and easily available narrative about Russia and a scarce, scattered knowledge about Ukraine. They show what history and political science can offer for a better understanding of the crisis and provide insights, which are based on reliable Ukrainian, Russian, Polish and Turkish sources and confidential interviews with key actors and advisors. Rather than offering easy answers, the authors present facts and knowledge, which enables the reader to make up his own informed opinion.

Are the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) and the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) independent actors, who mete out fair and un-biased justice, or instruments of a new world order, which execute the will of the most powerful states? By applying process tracing and frame analysis, this book reveals the interplay between the power politics of states, the agenda setting power of international criminal tribunals and the scope of the autonomy which the tribunals, the prosecutors and judges enjoy – and how they make use of it. The book details the mechanisms that govern judicial behaviour at the ICTY and the ICTR as well as the influence of the media, non-governmental organisations, governments and international organisations on judges and prosecutors. Last but not least, it shows why and how initially controversial frames like those about the «genocide in Srebrenica» and «the Rwandan genocide» became almost undisputed notions which are hardly challenged by anyone today.