Intersections of War, Science, and Legal Frameworks: Shaping Crime, Violence and Justice Across Historical and Geographical Contexts

Session Submission Type: Panel

Brief Description

This panel explores how military conflicts, disability rights, and debates in the human sciences shape legal and societal responses to violence. Covering case studies from the Russian Empire, Soviet Union, Russia, Uzbekistan, and Kazakhstan, our papers, in an intersectional perspective, study how various actors, including governments, lawmakers and legal scholars, human scientists, and the media, negotiated the conceptualization of crime and violence. One focus is the framing of domestic violence in media and legal systems during military conflicts, including the Soviet-Afghan War, Chechen Wars, and the war in Ukraine. We explore how wartime heroization of combatants reshapes legal norms and examine how high-profile domestic violence cases, such as one in Kazakhstan, influence public opinion and policy. We also investigate justice barriers for women with disabilities, highlighting legal exclusions and procedural shortcomings in post-Soviet judicial systems. A historical analysis of the Russian Empire explores how debates on mental sanity, race, and gender shaped crime definitions and courtroom practices.

By examining shifting societal norms, legal interpretations, and media narratives, this panel investigates how war and political instability redefine crime, violence, and justice. We look at how scientific and medical research, and legal scholarship on the one hand, and legal practice on the other, treat these subjects, as either victims or perpetrators, when they seek representation or protection. Ultimately, we look at how the rights of the individual are being re-assessed in relation to the interests of the state and other collectives.

Sub Unit

• Politics/Law

Chair

• Marianna Georgievna Muravyeva, U of Helsinki (Finland)

Papers

• When Silence Creates Violence: Understanding the Role of Identity-Based Dynamics and Highly Visible Events in Assessing Domestic Violence - Victoria Hastings; Julia Cann; Alisher Juzgenbayev, Northwestern U

• Framing Crime and Punishment in Times of War: A Comparative Analysis of Media and Legal Responses to Domestic Violence in the Soviet-Afghan, Chechen, and Ukrainian Conflicts - Yuliya Brin, U of Helsinki (Finland)

• Defending Survivors of Gender-Based Violence in Uzbekistan: Providing Access to Justice for Women with Disabilities -

Discussant

• Egor Lazarev, Yale U