Transitional Justice in Aparadigmatic Contexts by Tine Destrooper

Author:Tine Destrooper
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781000845600
Publisher: Taylor and Francis
Published: 2023-02-27T00:00:00+00:00

The Role of Political Authority

Truth and reconciliation commissions are by definition ‘sanctioned by the state’, authorised typically by the executive branch of government (Kochanski 2020, 116). They are often viewed as part of a larger state-building project, whereby a regime aims to signal a break with the past by advancing goals associated with the Commission’s work, such as reconciliation. In Greenland, this project is the future of Greenlandic independence. The Greenland Reconciliation Commission illuminates the role of political authority in transitional justice by showing how political decision-making enables and constrains the conditions of possibility for particular transitional justice institutions.

Given the self-government of Greenland, the Danish government could not prevent the Commission’s establishment. It was sanctioned and funded by Greenland’s government Naalakkersuisut and sat within the confines of the constitutional structure of the Danish Realm, whereby Greenland has authority over most internal matters. This structure may explain why the Commission had no accountability or reparations mandate. Greenlandic self-government does not cover justice affairs, including police, prosecutors, courts, and prison services, and this likely explains the Commission’s focus on recognition rather than accountability and truth. Some forms of resource extraction (e.g. uranium mining) are considered foreign and security related and thus controlled by Denmark. Given Greenland’s economic dependence on Denmark, material reparations could only be realised with funding from Denmark, and this would have been difficult without Danish participation. The disruptive intentions behind the Commission, and its challenge to the status quo, informed the Commission’s work, although Denmark’s place outside the Commission made it intra-Greenlandic and less focused on Denmark’s role (Forsoningskommissionen 2017, 16). Had there been Danish government support for a bilateral commission, it may have had a broader scope and involved the Danish public. As it turned out, Danish newspapers hardly wrote about the Commission’s report, while Danish MPs generally approached it as an internal matter. Thus, the Commission’s post-colonial politics became a social project.

The politics of public apology in Denmark sheds further light on the nature and role of political authority in shaping transitional justice in Greenland–Denmark relations. In particular, it demonstrates a limited government willingness to recognise, but rarely to compensate and never to be held accountable for harmful policies. This recognition does not aim to disrupt, but rather to maintain the status quo in Denmark-Greenland relations. At the same time, Greenlanders harmed by Danish modernisation or their political representatives have since the 1990s sought recognition and accountability.

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