Workshop: Connecting Memory Laws in Latin America, East Asia and Europe
On 12 March 2024, a unique – in its international scope – MEMOCRACY workshop took place at the premises of the T.M.C. Asser Institute in the Hague.
The MEMOCRACY project has brought a cohort of scholars from Latin America and East Asia to explore the topic of ‘memory laws’ and legal governance of history as a worldwide phenomenon. The workshop has unpacked how various legal measures govern the representation of the historical past. Most recently, the topic of memory laws has been actively discussed in the comparative scholarship in the context of the legal bans on historical speech, proliferating in, particular, in Central and Eastern Europe, since the 2010s. The theme of the workshop explored memory laws further, beyond the geographic scope of Europe. The event gathered legal scholars, experts from social sciences and practitioners from Latin America and East Asia discussing the diverse ways these regions have been dealing with memory laws and memory policies.
The current workshop was the result of earlier exchanges with East Asian researchers in Tokyo and Seoul, as well as with Latin American researchers in Brazil, culminating in the unique connection of the workshop organised in The Hague.
Prof Yunjeong Joo (Pusan National University, South Korea), Prof Satoshi Yokodaido (Keio University, Japan), Prof Junko Kotani (Shizuoka University, Japan), Dr Vincent K.L. Chang (Leiden University, the Netherlands), Dr Sandra M. Rios Oyola (Utrecht University, the Netherlands), Prof Carlos Pérez Ricart (Centro de Investigación y Docencia Económicas, and Commissioner in the Commission on Access to Truth, Historical Clarification and Justice for Serious Human Rights Violations in Mexico,1965-1990, Mexico), Prof André Andrade (Judge and Professor at UNESA, Universidade Estácio de Sá, Brazil), and Dr Mirosław Sadowski (University of Strathclyde, UK) provided their insightful presentations.
