Transitional Justice in Post-terror Contexts: The Norwegian 22 July Memorial and the Ambiguity of Litigation

Abstract

This article explores litigation as a practice of memorialization through a qualitative study of the legal mobilization to halt and re-site the Norwegian national memorial for the 22 July 2011 terror attack. In arguing that adversarial legal processes initiated by grassroots actors can represent a form of commemorative work with an ambiguous societal status, the article contributes to the emergent literature on transitional justice practices in established democracies and in post-terror contexts. In the Norwegian case, the law became an arena for contested negotiations over the hierarchy of victims. The litigation process also shaped how the fallout of 22 July is understood. Furthermore, this mobilization engendered frictions regarding the potential of future 22 July commemorations to perpetuate trauma. Litigation may be understood as a rupture with the national narrative of law as an accountability tool, because of the stigma and unresolved and painful contestation around democratic citizenship that it produces.