Rethinking Values, Norms, and Institutions in Armenia
with Dr. Armen Mazmanyan
Seminar Series
AUA Law Department
October-November, 2011
This seminar series is designed as a forum for deliberation on issues of public concern in Armenia and is open and free to experts, practitioners, and academics from law, government and related disciplines. The objective of the seminar is to facilitate an exchange of ideas and views in an effort to create a public debate on topical issues facing Armenian society. Among the topics to be discussed are rule of law and strategies for building sustainable democratic institutions in Armenia, judicial reforms, Armenian-Turkish relations, dual citizenship, freedom of speech and the state of deliberative discourse in Armenia. The seminar will bring some high-profile figures from academia and government to express and share views with other participants.
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Rethinking the G-word
The application of the term “genocide” to the annihilation and expulsion of millions of Armenians in the late Ottoman Empire has been in the center of the efforts of the Armenian communities worldwide and is apparently key to the Armenian Government’s foreign policy agenda. The term Genocide was coined by the UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide of 1948. While the retroactive application of this convention raises certain legal issues, it is unclear whether any instruments are available under international law to address these issues and whether the campaigns for Genocide recognition have taken any possible ones into consideration in their long-term strategy.
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Perspectives on Judicial Reform with Justice Minister Hrayr Tovmasyan
On Tuesday, November 15, as part of its fall Seminar Series on the Rule of Law, the Legal Resource Center hosted RA Justice Minister Hrayr Tovmasyan. The seminar topic was judicial reforms and the rule of law. AUA students and faculty, as well as a number of alumni, government officials, and NGO representatives took part in the seminar. After presenting an overview of legal reforms on the Ministry’s agenda, Mr. Tovmasyan lead a lively Q&A session. The seminar was followed by a reception in the AUA Student Lounge, during which participants had the opportunity to continue the discussion and talk more informally with the Minister and his staff.
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Dink’s Legacy & Akcam’s Freedom: The Armenian Genocide, the European Court and Expanding Freedom in Turkey
The European Court of Human Rights has recently issued a judicial decision holding that the mere threat of prosecution under Turkey’s Criminal Code 301 (criminalizing “publicly degrad[ing] the Turkish nation”) is a violation of freedom of expression under the Convention. The person who brought the case was Taner Akcam, a Turkish historian who wrote that the Young Turk policy towards Armenians fits within the definition of Genocide per the Genocide Convention. His statement was taken to be in support of Hrant Dink. He was not prosecuted, but he was subjected to investigation under 301, and he was severely chastised in the Turkish press. In reaching its decision the European Court relies, in part, on its prior decision regarding Hrant Dink’s 301-prosecution. With a great sense of irony, it is the Armenian Genocide which is securing a greater scope of freedom for Turks in Turkey through the European Court.
How does Genocide recognition relate to freedom and Genocide denial relate to a lack of freedom? Can freedom of expression facilitate a catharsis which redefines Armenian-Turkish relations? Or in a more modest sense, does this case mean anything for future relations between Armenia and Turkey? At a minimum, the case confirms that the past is very much a part of the present for both countries.
What Do Human Rights Mean To Us?
Do we respect human rights as the supreme values that have been codified in our constitution? How is respect for fundamental rights embedded in our informal constitution- our value system? To what extent is the state of protecting human rights today a result of misperception or misconception about them? One common excuse for the failures to protect human rights, often mentioned by government officials, is the priority of public interest, and economic development has been often mentioned as one of such priorities. Two questions beg answers in this context: 1. is such position morally justifiable and 2, is there indeed a bold-line conflict between human rights protection and economic development and are these priorities mutually exclusive, or we can achieve other priorities within the framework of human rights protection?
(Dis)obeying Rules: Inquiry into Legitimacy and Law
What makes law legitimate? How does our sense of just and unjust predetermine our attitudes toward rules and policies? Can we disobey unjust laws and repudiate rulers thought to be unjust?This and other questions will be the subject of our discussion on Tuesday, October 18. Needless to say, these issues bear upon profound questions of legal and political theory and are relevant to any society, historical or modern.
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How to Have a (liberal) Constitutional Democracy?
Sam Potolicchio teaches American Politics and Public Affairs and Research Methods for the Semester in Washington Program at Georgetown University. At Georgetown, Potolicchio has taught courses on Presidential Rhetoric, Religion and Politics, Constitutional Law, and the United States Political System. He is a decorated teacher, named by the Princeton Review as one of “America’s Best Professors”, winning three “Teacher of the Year” awards at Georgetown and the K. Patricia Cross Award from the American Association of Colleges and Universities as one of the future leaders of American higher education.
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Rule of Law: What does it take to build it?
Twenty years of independence mark an opportunity to reflect also upon the past two decades of reforms- transition from a planned to a market economy, and from an authoritarian to a democratic political order. How should we assess democratic development and the rule of law reform during the past 20 years in the Republic of Armenia? To what extent have we succeeded in building effective institutions of democracy and rule of law? Assessments may vary widely depending on initial expectations. Ultimately, the above inquiries beg an answer to the question what does it takes to build rule of law and what are the natural constraints and challenges along the path toward building relevant institutions?
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