Carsten Stahn
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View article: Piercing the Colonial Veil?
Piercing the Colonial Veil? Open
Crimes against humanity have a longer grounding in colonial history than publicly acknowledged. The crimes against children of mixed European and African ancestry (Métis) throughout Belgian colonial rule in the Congo are a paradigm example…
View article: Confronting Colonial Objects
Confronting Colonial Objects Open
In 1978, UNESCO Secretary General Amadou-Mahtar M’Bow compared cultural colonial objects to ‘witnesses to history’. Their treatment is one of the most debated questions of our time. Calls for a novel international cultural order go back to…
View article: Collecting Mania, Racial Science, and Cultural Conversion through Forcible Expeditions
Collecting Mania, Racial Science, and Cultural Conversion through Forcible Expeditions Open
This chapter traces the link between evolutionary and racial science and the scramble for objects since the mid-nineteenth century, based on micro-histories of forcible expeditions, carried out by different colonial powers (France, the UK,…
View article: Copyright Page
Copyright Page Open
Subject Public International Law Collection: Oxford Scholarship Online
View article: Expanding Empire: Curiosity, Power, and Prestige
Expanding Empire: Curiosity, Power, and Prestige Open
This chapter explores the genealogy and different modes of extractive colonial collecting. It develops a typology of takings and forms of violence. It illustrates practices from the sixteenth century to the mid-nineteenth century through s…
View article: The Scramble for Cultural Colonial Objects: Other Types of Acquisition
The Scramble for Cultural Colonial Objects: Other Types of Acquisition Open
This chapter demonstrates how collectors, traders, or missionaries benefited from colonial contexts. It argues that market labels, such as purchase or the idea of a ‘gift’ do not necessarily reflect the context of colonial transactions. It…
View article: Confronting Colonial Heritage
Confronting Colonial Heritage Open
This introductory chapter sets restitution and return of colonial objects into context. It addresses the methodological challenges of confronting object histories, including positionality, post-colonial theories (e.g. Said, Fanon), and the…
View article: Colonial and Post-colonial Continuities in Culture Heritage Protection: Narratives and Counter-narratives
Colonial and Post-colonial Continuities in Culture Heritage Protection: Narratives and Counter-narratives Open
This chapter traces the contrasting faces of legal frameworks throughout the twentieth century, including their interplay with market economies. It argues that the political economy of takings and the market value of objects contributed to…
View article: Collecting Humanity: Commodification, Trophy Hunting, and Bio-colonialism
Collecting Humanity: Commodification, Trophy Hunting, and Bio-colonialism Open
This chapter demonstrates the centrality of the human body as site of colonial violence. It shows that human remains were taken as war trophies, collected as items of racial science, and traded as communities. It illustrates how projection…
View article: Beyond to Return or Not to Return: Towards Relational Cultural Justice
Beyond to Return or Not to Return: Towards Relational Cultural Justice Open
This chapter argues in favour of a pluralistic culture justice model, in order to overcome traditional impasses of restitution discourses. It first traces lessons from contemporary return practices, including the historical Dahomey returns…
View article: Acknowledging the Past, Righting the Future: Changing Ethical and Legal Frames
Acknowledging the Past, Righting the Future: Changing Ethical and Legal Frames Open
This chapter traces the dialectics between ethics and law in the return of cultural colonial objects. It challenges the claim that takings were acceptable according to the ethics or laws of the time. It analyses changing ethical frames and…
View article: Law’s Complicity in Cultural Takings and Colonial Violence: Double Standards, Discursive Silencing, and Social Transformation
Law’s Complicity in Cultural Takings and Colonial Violence: Double Standards, Discursive Silencing, and Social Transformation Open
This chapter argues that positivist law and legal doctrines were actively used in colonial times to organize the world along lines of social or racial exclusion and to legitimatize domination, through double standards, discriminatory seman…
View article: Beyond “To Return or Not To Return” – The Benin Bronzes as a Game Changer?
Beyond “To Return or Not To Return” – The Benin Bronzes as a Game Changer? Open
“These works notably stand among the highest heights of European casting”. This is what Felix von Luschan, the curator of the ethnographic museum in Berlin, wrote in 1919 in his book on the Benin objects. Their looting in 1897 foreshadowed…
View article: <i>Jus Post Bellum</i> and Just Peace
<i>Jus Post Bellum</i> and Just Peace Open
Theories of just peace have remained understudied in international law and peace studies. This chapter introduces major themes of the book and traces the role of peace and justice in just peace discourse. It identifies different approaches…
View article: Reckoning with colonial injustice: International law as culprit and as remedy?
Reckoning with colonial injustice: International law as culprit and as remedy? Open
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View article: Quality control in fact-finding [second edition]
Quality control in fact-finding [second edition] Open
This book discusses how fact-finding mechanisms for alleged violations of international human rights, humanitarian and criminal law can be improved. There has been a significant increase in the use of international(ised) and domestic fact-…
View article: Just Peace after Conflict: Jus Post Bellum and the Justice of Peace
Just Peace after Conflict: Jus Post Bellum and the Justice of Peace Open
The interplay between peace and justice plays an important role in any contemporary conflict. Peace can be described in a variety ways, as being 'negative' or 'positive', 'liberal' or 'democratic'. But what is it that makes a peace just? T…
View article: A Critical Introduction to International Criminal Law
A Critical Introduction to International Criminal Law Open
Suitable for students, academics and professionals from multiple fields wishing to understand contemporary theories, practices and critiques of international criminal law, this book presents the field in an accessible way via five core the…
View article: Introduction
Introduction Open
Protection of the environment and natural resources is a key element in the transition from armed conflict to peace. Most academic studies have focused on classical peacetime or conflict situations. The United Nations Environmental Program…