Daniel Posthumus

Daniel Posthumus

Pre-Doctoral Fellow with Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research (SIEPR)

Publications

Search for Facilitator Further Delays Iowa Truth and Reconciliation Commission

Published in The Pulitzer Center, 2022

On the evening of Thursday, November 4, 2021, after the Iowa City Truth and Reconciliation Commissioners filed out of their meeting in City Hall, Commission Chair Mohamed Traore spoke with community members about school outreach. He noticed two police officers approaching. He thought that they might ask him about the Commission’s work. Or that something had happened to his family. It was neither: The officers arrested Traore.

Recommended citation: Posthumus, Daniel. "Search for Facilitator Further Delays Iowa Truth and Reconciliation Commission." The Pulitzer Center. May 11, 2022. https://pulitzercenter.org/stories/search-facilitator-further-delays-iowa-truth-and-reconciliation-commission.

The International Criminal Court is a Court of Last Resort

Published in Smerconish.com, 2022

As Russian forces continue their assault on Ukraine, there is growing evidence of war crimes and other atrocities in Borodyanka, Bucha, Mariupol, Kramatorsk, and elsewhere. Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy, U.S. president Joe Biden, and other world leaders have even described Russian violence as genocide. Accordingly, international courts have come into heightened focus.

Recommended citation: Posthumus, Daniel, Kelebogile Zvobgo, Zoha Siddiqui, and Nathaniel Liu. "The International Criminal Court is a Court of Last Resort." Smerconish.com. April 28, 2022. https://www.smerconish.com/exclusive-content/the-international-criminal-court-is-a-court-of-last-resort/.

Could Putin Actually Face Accountability at the ICC

Published in Foreign Policy, 2022

On Feb. 28, Karim Khan, chief prosecutor at the International Criminal Court (ICC), announced his intention to investigate alleged atrocity crimes in Ukraine. He noted his interest to proceed “as rapidly as possible” and asked the international community for financial and logistical support as well as personnel to expedite and sustain his office’s work.

Recommended citation: Posthumus, Daniel, Kelebogile Zvobgo, Zoha Siddiqui, and Nathaniel Liu. "Could Putin Actually Face Accountability at the ICC." Foreign Policy. March 04, 2022. https://foreignpolicy.com/2022/03/04/icc-investigation-russia-ukraine-putin-war-crimes/.

Democratizing Truth

Published in International Journal of Transitional Justice, 2021

Over the past half-century, numerous transitional justice (TJ) measures have been implemented globally. While much research has examined different TJ modalities in the aftermath of authoritarian rule and armed conflict, a growing body of work recognizes TJ outside of political transitions. We study a noteworthy export from transitional to non-transitional settings: truth commissions. Building on scholarship on TJ in established democracies, we introduce new quantitative data from the Varieties of Truth Commissions Project on truth commissions in an overlooked but significant case: the United States. The data captures 20 past, present and proposed official US truth commissions, most of them at the subnational level. Though their mandates vary considerably, they all address racial injustice, with an emphasis on anti-Indigenous and anti-Black violence. We elaborate on trends in the data and discuss the implications for unfolding efforts to reckon with historical and contemporary racial violence and injustice in the United States.

Recommended citation: Daniel Posthumus, Kelebogile Zvobgo, Democratizing Truth: An Analysis of Truth Commissions in the United States. International Journal of Transitional Justice. Volume 15, Issue 3, November 2021. Pages 510–532. https://academic.oup.com/ijtj/article-abstract/15/3/510/6406461.