Victim Rights, Victim Values

Session Submission Type: Pre-arranged Panel

Abstract

Since the 1980s victims of crime have moved up the political, legal, policy and practice agendas. Concomitantly, there has been an associated change in the cultural meaning and significance of ‘victimhood’. In this panel session we will explore the relationship between the increased salience of victim rights (or entitlements) and victim culture (or status). Of particular interest is the intersection of different victim values and how they shape our understanding and response to the victims of crime and injustice. We will critically interrogate how current debates and signature events have propelled not only interpersonal, but also social group victimisation to the forefront of social and legal controversy.
This panel session will prompt an important and timely discussion of a new era of victimology, in which we are witnessing the ascendency of the victim as the new cultural icon of crime an injustice. How is this affecting our conception of justice and due process? To what extent are victim rights the product of political or geographical bias? And is the victims’ movement genuinely emancipatory – giving voice to the oppressed and subjugated or an ideological tool for the continued silencing of the subaltern?

Subtopic

• Topic 4: Victimology / Victims’ rights (Victimology WG)

Chairs

• Suzan van der Aa, Maastricht University

• Simon Green, University of Hull

Individual Presentations

• A chief concern? Victims and extraterritorial atrocity prosecution - Marieke de Hoon, University of Amsterdam

• Hannah Arendt and the response to victimization of international crimes - Antony Pemberton, Katholieke Universiteit of Leuven (KU Leuven)

• Victim Rights, Power and Privilege: Is there a case for collective rights for victims? - Simon Green, University of Hull

• International victim rights and their underlying values - Suzan van der Aa, Maastricht University