Comment archive

Thursday, 2 Dec 2021
22 July 2011: Contested Closures

As part of PRIO’s contribution to the 10 year commemoration of 22 of July, the author challenges perceptions of justice after mass atrocity that equates justice with law and criminal justice with closure. After mass violence, “the promised exercise of legal justice — of justice by trial and law — ...

Friday, 23 Jul 2021
Norway After the Terror

Preface On the occasion of the 10th anniversary for the terror attacks in in Oslo and at Utøya on 22 July 2011, there is a renewed debate in Norway. The main focus is on the political motivations for the attack, as well as on how Norway has dealt with (or ...

Tuesday, 20 Jul 2021
Terror Did Not Strike Indiscriminately

22nd JULY 2011: a terrorist killed 68 young people and bombed the Government Quarter, where he killed nine people and injured many more, because the ‘Labour-Party state’ was promoting ethnic, religious and political diversity. “Then they came for me — and there was no one left to speak out for ...

Thursday, 27 May 2021
On Words and World-Making:  Law professors, power and responsibility

On 6 May 2021, something extraordinary happened in Norwegian academia: in an op-ed in the newspaper Stavanger Aftenblad, Ole Gjems-Onstad, a law professor at BI Norwegian Business School (BI), criticized the Labour Party and 22 July survivors for a lack of self-criticism. The op-ed was met with disbelief, horror and ...

Friday, 21 Jul 2017
Performing Grief

As we discuss the relationship between public and private mourning and grief, consider the emotional handling of the Newtown school shooting in 2012, where twenty children were killed at Sandy Hook elementary school. Such a traumatic event destabilizes people, creating a felt deficit in emotional support. When President Obama visited ...

Friday, 21 Jul 2017
Private Loss and Public Mourning

After dehumanizing events – such as the 2011 Norway terror attacks – emotions play a significant role in the public sphere. Let me offer a couple of examples: On August 21, only one month after Anders Behring Breivik killed a total of 77 people, Norway’s King Harald held a deeply ...