Legalized Identities: Cultural Heritage Law and the Shaping of Transitional Justice

Cultural heritage is a feature of transitioning societies, from museums commemorating the end of a dictatorship to adding places like the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp to the World Heritage List. These processes are governed by specific laws, and yet transitional justice discourses tend to ignore law’s role, assuming that memory in transition emerges organically. This book debunks this assumption, showing how cultural heritage law is integral to what memory and cultural identity is possible in transition. Lixinski attempts to reengage with the original promise of transitional justice: to pragmatically advance societies towards a future where atrocities will no longer happen. The promise in the UNESCO Constitution of lasting peace through cultural understanding is possible through focusing on the intersection of cultural heritage law and transitional justice, as Lixinski shows in this ground-breaking book.