GLOBALE: Tribunal – A Trial Against the Transgressions of the 20th Century

The GLOBALE begins with a tribunal at which the 20^th century will be tried for its transgressions and crimes against humanity, animals, and nature. Indictments will be sought for genocide such as the Holocaust, the exploitation of the Earth, and the extermination of the animal world by humans. With a conference, a panorama-screen installation, and a film program, the tribunal will present a critical review of the 20^th century, a “century of extremes” (Eric Hobsbawm, 1994) and declining inhibition.

The three-day event takes its cue from Franz Kafka’s novel »The Trial« (1914/1915) and prominent trials of the 20^th century. The historical trials that serve as a model for this tribunal are the dadaist trial against Maurice Barrès (1921), the Nuremberg Trials, and the Vietnam War Crimes Tribunal. As the first international tribunals prosecuting war crimes, the Nuremberg Trials are exemplary of legal proceedings to ascertain individual guilt in crimes against humanity. The Vietnam War Crimes Tribunal, also known as the Russell Tribunal, was initiated by Lord Bertrand Russell in 1966, as a private body for investigating and evaluating American war crimes in Vietnam. It later served as the model for investigating violations of international law; for example, for the United Nations International Criminal Tribunal.

Our tribunal also reminds us of the legal importance of Karlsruhe – the seat of both the Federal Constitutional Court and the Federal Attorney General of Germany. The presentations will deal with the history of violence and genocide, expulsion and persecution in the 20^th century. The speakers are distinguished scholars and artists exploring these themes from historical, legal, philosophical, and artistic perspectives, who will present their latest research findings.

Conference languages are English and German.

Speakers: Boris Barth, Roger Berkowitz, Bazon Brock, Mihran Dabag, Lutz Dammbeck, Frank Dikötter, Paul N. Edwards, Raphael Gross, Terike Haapoja, Clive Hamilton, Kerryn Higgs, Ben Kiernan, Claude Klein, Hans-Werner Kroesinger, Norman M. Naimark, Antonio Negri, Jan M. Piskorski, Saskia Sassen, Peter Sloterdijk, Hannibal Travis and Jürgen Zimmerer

Moderation: Joseph Cohen, Peter Weibel and Raphael Zagury-Orly

The detailed Program as well as Informationen about the speakers you can find at »The Tribunal – Themes and Speakers.
There will be a live stream.

The Coldest Planet in the Universe

Accompanying the conference »The Tribunal – A Trial Against the Transgressions of the 20^th Century«, Peter Weibel’s installation »The Coldest Planet in the Universe: The Human Heart. Violence and Genocide in the Twentieth Century« provides background information on the crimes against humanity before the tribunal.
More information about the panorama-screen installation »here.

Film program

The conference is accompanied by a film program in the lecture hall, which focuses on crimes against animals and nature. On display are documentaries and features, which inform about environmental pollution caused by poison and waste, about the outrageous treatment of animals and about the dangerous consequences of special-interest food production for humans, nature and animals. Among the films shown are Maria-Monique Robin’s »The World According to Monsanto« (2009), Éric Guéret’s »The Nuclear Nightmare« (2009) and Erwin Wagenhofer's 2005 film »We feed the World«.

 

Symposium
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Friday, June 19, 2015
10 am–10:45 am	Peter Weibel	Introduction
10:45 am–11:30 am	Norman M. Naimark	Stalin on Trial
11:30 am–12:15 pm	Lutz Dammbeck _________________	Worstward Ho
1:30 pm–2:15 pm	Roger Berkowitz	How to Love Our World: Hannah Arendt’s Judgement of Adolf Eichmann
2:15 pm−3 pm	Claude Klein	A Jurist's Look at the Eichmann Trial and at Hannah Arendt's Consideration on it
3 pm−3:45 pm	Raphael Gross _________________	Franz Kafka, Hans Kelsen und die Normativität des Bösen
4 pm−4:45 pm	Mihran Dabag	Gestaltung durch Vernichtung: Weltanschauliche Rahmungen von Völkermorden im 20. Jahrhundert
4:45 pm−5:30 pm	Boris Barth _________________	The Young Turks in Power and the Armenian Genocide
6 pm–6:45 pm	Jürgen Zimmerer	The First German Genocide (1904–1908) in Context: Towards a Postcolonial Reading of Germany's Racial Century
6:45 pm–7:30 pm	Ben Kiernan	The World History of Genocide
7:30 pm–8:15 pm	Hannibal Travis	Patterns of Genocidal Education: From the Ottoman Empire to Contemporary Zones of Mass Killing
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Saturday, June 20, 2015
10 am–10:15 am	Peter Weibel	Introduction
10:15 am–11 am	Terike Haapoja _________________	The Unwritten History of Non-Humanity
11:15 am–12 pm	Antonio Negri	Il socialismo e la nazione
12 pm–12:45 pm	Jan M. Piskorski _________________	Die Verjagten: Flucht und Vertreibung im Europa des 20. Jahrhunderts
1:45 pm–2:30 pm	Paul Edwards	Time Crimes: The 20th Century’s Long Now
2:30 pm–3:15 pm	Clive Hamilton _________________	Requiem for a Species (> Crimes Against Nature: The Banality of Ethics in the Anthropocene)
3:30 pm–4:15 pm	Kerryn Higgs	The Age of Growth: Collision Course
4:15 pm–5 pm	Hans-Werner Kroesinger	FACEing Documents or Dealing with History on Stage Without Making Deals
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Sunday, June 21, 2015
10 am–10:45 am	Frank Dikötter	Mao's Great Famine
10:45 am–11:30 am	Saskia Sassen _________________	Expulsions
11:45 am–12:30 pm	Bazon Brock	The Logic of Globalisation Destroys the Idea of a Universal Evolution of Mankind
12:30 pm–1:15 pm	Peter Sloterdijk	Was geschah im 20. Jahrhundert?
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The conference takes place at the ZKM_Foyer.
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