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Postapartheid Justice: Can Cosmopolitanism and Nation-Building Be Reconciled?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2024

Rosemary Nagy
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Abstract

South African plaintiffs are suing numerous multinational corporations under the American Alien Tort Claims Act for aiding and abetting apartheid's crimes against humanity. This article argues that Re South African Apartheid Litigation should be understood as a cosmopolitan re-membering of the nation. This interpretation runs counter to theoretical and political presumptions of an inherent antagonism between cosmopolitanism and nationhood. The apparent divide between cosmopolitanism and nation-building is bridged by the concept of victimhood. Insofar as nation-building in South Africa depends upon the restoration of victims, so too is cosmopolitanism victim-centered in its commitment to prevent harm and suffering. The apartheid litigants enact the duality of cosmopolitanism: they press for justice on the basis of cosmopolitan right, yet they do so in part because of their continued marginalization in the “new” South Africa with respect to issues of “truth” and reparation. Following on the “unfinished business” of the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission, the apartheid litigation illustrates the intersection of cosmopolitanism with national memory and belonging.

Type
Articles of General Interest
Information
Law & Society Review , Volume 40 , Issue 3 , September 2006 , pp. 623 - 652
Copyright
© 2006 Law and Society Association.

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Footnotes

I would like to thank Brandon Hamber for our conversation, Diane Sammons and Dumisa Ntsebeza for providing documents, and Ronalda Murphy, Doris Buss, and Christiane Wilke for comments on earlier drafts. I would also like to thank the anonymous reviewers and Herbert Kritzer for their thoughtful comments and suggestions. All shortcomings are mine.

References

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