The Concept of Just Peace
Conceptually, the notion of just peace faces several challenges. The term appears to suggest that a
‘just peace’ requires both peace and some form of justice. Both terms are highly contested and
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value-laden.
A. Challenges of Conceptualization
A fundamental problem is the interplay between them. The concept of just peace reflects the
dilemmas of the peace v. justice debate.
The idea of just peace implies that peace is an overarching condition, but must carry the promise of
justice. The idea to link justice and peace has ancient roots. It was developed in peacebuilding
approaches and transitional justice. Examples like the Latin American dictatorships have shown
that some form of negative peace, without justice, is unsustainable. Today, it is widely recognized
that peace and justice are considered to be interrelated. The dualism between peace and justice is
part and parcel of UN practice, and firmly established in the jurisprudence of the Inter-American
Court of Human Rights. Judge García-Sayán stressed this dialectical relationship in the El Mozote
case:
States have a legal obligation to address the rights of the victims and, with the same intensity, the
obligation to prevent further acts of violence and to achieve peace in an armed conflict by the
means at its disposal.
This approach has been confirmed by the Constitutional Court of Colombia. It held in its judgment
on the constitutionality of the Special jurisdiction for Peace that peace exists on the basis of justice,
while the realization of justice requires peace. Peace requires both ending of hostilities and
guarantees of justice. Where justice is neglected, peace remains unstable. If peace is lost, injustice
may prevail.
However, historically, the two concepts have been in tension. They have been pitted against each
other. Seeking justice may prolong armed conflict or impede peace efforts. Proponents of
accountability have argued that the rights of victims to justice may trump peace. Treating both as
equal conditions requires context-specific adaptation and balancing. The choice is not binary
(peace v. justice), but a complex mix of the two. If peace is considered as a fundamental basis for
other rights, the realization of justice becomes a matter of timing and degree. It provides a basis to
accept compromises in the type, nature, and degree of justice. Justice becomes relative, that is,
adjusted to the legitimate claims and interests of parties and the situational context. For instance,
less punitive visions of justice may become more compelling.
A second problem is the evolution of the nature of the conflict. Traditional elements of just peace
have been developed in relation to interstate wars. In this context, just peace was associated with
factors such as the cessation of hostilities, the conclusion of peace treaties, the provision of
reparation for damages or structures of accountability. Peace was inherently linked to the idea of
vindicating rights and restoring order. Today’s conflicts are mostly non- international or mixed.
They include classical civil wars, that is, internal armed conflicts between states and non-state
actors, as well as conflicts between non-state actors. A just peace theory must accommodate the
dynamics and particular difficulties of intra-state conflicts. In such contexts, many of the normative
assumptions underlying classical just war theory (e.g. just
v. unjust causes of conflict, aggressor v. victim. obligation v. rights vindication) are more difficult to
determine. States are reluctant to define parameters, since armed groups may use just peace
criteria to justify rebellion or armed force, that is, struggles to secure a return to a ‘just
peace’. Non-state actors may have incentives to keep up hostilities until a peace settlement
consolidates a just order.
A third challenge is the wide typology of violence. Enduring just peace may not be possible between
certain types of actors. For instance, it is questionable to what extent the Western world and ISIS
would be able to establish a just peace. In some circumstances, the continuation of conflict may
ensure a better guarantee of justice than the establishment of peace.
There is thus some reluctance in scholarship to determine formal or objective just peace criteria,
that is, ‘akin to just war criteria’. For example, Edward Said has cautioned against the formulation
of just peace elements, because it is ‘nearly impossible’ to use the concept ‘with any kind of
universal consistency’. Adam Roberts has highlighted the risks of ideal types of just peace:[t]he
worst possible way to approach the whole subject of just peace would be to develop an ‘ideal type’
of such a peace, and then seek to impose it. Since there is not now, and is not going to be, one single
and agreed concept of just peace, the attempt to impose one is likely itself to become a source of
conflict.
Instead, process-related criteria and intersubjective considerations have gained broader
consideration. Just peace is seen as a process. The law has a facilitating and enabling function. It is
deemed to guide determinations as to what is just in the respective context.
B. Contemporary Approaches
In current scholarship, there are at least four different approaches towards just peace: (i) approaches
grounded in the just war tradition, (ii) the peacebuilding tradition, (iii) transitional justice, and (iv)
intersubjective approaches.
B.i. Just Peace and the Just War Tradition
In the just war tradition, just peace is a corollary of just war. The term just is used as an adjective,
that is, a means to evaluate peace. Peace is approached from consequentialist logic. The idea of just
peace is derived from arguments relating to the justification of warfare. Some just war theorists
claim that the tradition ‘contains within itself ’, a theory of peace. For instance,a jus ad pacem
Michael Walzer has argued that a theory of ‘just peace’ is ‘implicit in the
theory of just war’. Just war is a means, just peace the end. Just peace is a way of ending war rightly.
Just peace considerations are inherent in the just cause, legitimate authority, and right intention
requirements. Threats to peace and order are viewed as ‘just cause’ for war. The duty of legitimate
authority is to restore peace. Right intention requires strategies to end war in a just way. The
right intention must ‘aim at a peace that meets certain moral standards: peace (p.6) with
justice or peace with a sufficiently just international order’. Just peace arguments devote attention
to the ‘longitudinal’ aspects of conflict. After winning war, it is necessary to win peace.
Just war theory itself does not offer much guidance on how to build a just and sustainable peace.
The argument of just peace is approached predominantly from an agent-based conception. Peace is
determined by the dispute between the parties to a conflict and geared at establishing peaceful
relations. The objective of peace imposes constraints on the role of victory, and defines
responsibilities of warring factions in the aftermath of conflict. Criteria have focused on
termination of hostilities, exit from war, constraints on conquest, parameters of peace settlements,
limits of occupying powers and justice after war. For example, Brian Orend has established specific
criteria for justice after war, including moderation in the termination the war (e.g. exclusion of
revenge), publicity of the terms of peace or proportionality of rights vindication. They serve as
constraints on the infliction of an unjust peace.
However, this traditional focus on conflicting parties fails to take into account the complexities of
modern practice. The establishment of peace involves many actors that are not themselves parties
in the conflict, such as international institutions or peace operations. A comprehensive theory of
just peace must draw on elements that go beyond traditional just war theory. This is recognized in
modern scholarship. For instance, Larry May has recognized that the responsibility for achieving a
just peace goes beyond the concerned parties. James Pattison has made the point that
reconstruction should be effected by those who are in the best position to rebuild effectively, and
not necessarily by belligerents. Recent voices in military ethics suggest that just peace requires not
only respect for rights of persons (e.g. self-determination, human rights protection, and
reintegration) and justice, but also ‘ecological responsibility’, and engagement of ‘multinational
commitment and support’.
One of the objections to the theorization of just peace under just war theory is that the latter is
backwards-looking and centred on wrongs of war. This prism limits the utility of the theory. For
example, just war theory has been criticized by the pacifist movement (from the Latin
pacificare, ‘to make peace’) for failing to articulate a vision on how to create a better world. It
does not per se provide clarity on the type of peace that should be promoted. It has navigated
between minimalist and maximalist conceptions of peace. From a just war perspective, the
immediate aim of ending hostilities between certain types of actors may take precedence over
longer-term or structural considerations. From this point of view, a decent peace which is
practically achievable and able to constrain violence may be acceptable.
Just war theory has been exposed to just peace critiques. Just peace theorists have claimed that just
war theory fails to deliver a credible theory for peace after conflict since it downplays the
detrimental effects of war and its implications on individuals, constructs peace strategies through
an adversarial lens, applies top-down moral reasoning, and places the emphasis on rights and
principles of justice, rather than needs and interests of specific persons.
Modern scholars have argued that just peace theory is not merely a part of just war theory, but a
more comprehensive category of its own. It is ‘relationship-centered, holistic, proactive, and long
term’. Just war theory is meant to supplement, rather than replace just peace theory.It ‘contributes
to limiting violence’ while ‘just peace principles bear the larger load of building just social relations
to extend peace in space, time, participation, and quality’. For instance, Maryann Cusimano Love
has formulated a comprehensive vision of just peace that complements just war theory:Just peace
is animated by the just cause of protecting, defending, and restoring human life and dignity and the
common good; right intention (aiming to create a positive peace); participation (respecting
human dignity means including societal stakeholders—state and non- state actors, women, youth,
victims, as well as previous parties to the conflict); restoration (trauma healing and repair of the
human as well as the physical infrastructure); right relationship (creating or restoring just social
relationships both vertically and horizontally); reconciliation (healing the communal and
individual wounds of war); and sustainability (developing structures that can help peace endure
over time).
B.ii. Peacebuilding
The peacebuilding tradition takes a different starting point than just war theory. It has origins in
the context of peacekeeping operations, UN enforcement action, and the dilemmas of
humanitarian interventions, as well as peace ethics more broadly. It approaches just peace
independently from the justification of violence. It does not seek to evaluate right or wrong but
rather treats armed violence as an undesirable social condition, that is, a tragedy or disaster that
needs to be remedied. The aim is to create the conditions necessary for a sustainable peace in war-
torn societies. This requires a more comprehensive conception of peace.
Peacebuilding advocates have imagined much richer visions of peace. Christian ethicist scholars
developed the idea of ‘just peacemaking’ in 1990 as part of the ethics of war and peace, following
debates about the proper response to the invasion of Kuwait by Iraq. US theologian Glen Stassen
proposed ten policies for ‘just peacemaking’ that go beyond just war theory. He grounded them in
three theological principles: peacemaking, justice, and community. They include: (i) support for
nonviolent direct action; (ii) independent initiatives to reduce threat; (iii) cooperative conflict
resolution; (iv) acknowledgement of responsibility for conflict and injustice and seeking of
repentance and forgiveness; (v) advancement of democracy, human rights, and religious liberty;
(vi) fostering just and sustainable economic development; (vii) work with emerging cooperative
forces in the international system; (viii) strengthening the UN and international efforts for
cooperation and human rights; (ix) reducing offensive weapons and weapons trade; and (x)
encouraging grassroots peacemaking groups and voluntary associations).
In international institutional practices, peacebuilding has linked just peace to rationales of change
and conflict transformation. Early strategies focused on the absence of violence, that is, emergency
relief and the control of violence. Contemporary approaches recognize that sustaining peace
requires a thicker social context, including development, conflict transformation, and social
change. They associated just peace with certain outcomes, such as institutional reform, the re-
establishment of the rule of law, accountability and punishment, or socio-economic reform. Unlike
just war theory, the peacebuilding tradition extends peace far beyond party-driven interests. It
treats peace more as a form of ‘shared responsibility’ which includes international organizations
and third actors.
The hallmark of imagination in international institutional politics is the ‘liberal peacebuilding’
paradigm. It may be traced back to the UN Agenda for Peace, established in 1992. It connected
peacebuilding to the democratic peace theory (importance of elections, representative self-
government), rule of law, economic liberalization, human rights, and accountability. This approach
goes much further than merely postulating a just peace. It embraces a clear commitment to a
positive conception of peace. It treated elements of liberal transformation almost like a checklist or
recipe. It has faced multiple critiques: the top-down orientation of
peace strategies, the tension of
liberal peace ideals with communitarian Islamic setting and non-
Western cultures, discrepancies
between international and local conceptions of violence and peace, and contradictions between
liberalism and other peacebuilding rationales. Critical peace theory emerged as an alternative
narrative. It stressed the need for a greater degree of self- reflexivity and contextualization in
peacebuilding practices.
Peacebuilding accommodates both short-term and long-term considerations of peace. It is less
normative and more pragmatic than just war theory. It is guided by the assumption that a just
peace requires a social context which promotes respect and trust in social, political, and economic
institutions. It encompasses ‘hybrid’ forms of peace that enable local agency. It goes at the same
time further than just peace strategies, by relying heavily on theories of change and societal
transformation.
B.iii. Transitional Justice
Transitional justice approaches have shed yet another light on just peace. Broadly defined, the field
introduces a strategy, that is, ‘a way of thinking about justice after atrocity’. It relates to justice
‘associated with periods of political change’, including ‘legal responses to confront the wrongdoing
of repressive predecessor regimes’. It is part of the UN peacebuilding structure. The UN advocates
for the ‘inclusion of human rights and transitional justice considerations in peace agreements’ and
close coordination of ‘disarmament, demobilization, and reintegration (DDR) initiatives’ with
‘transitional justice processes’. According to UN policies, transitional encompasses ‘both judicial
and non-judicial processes and mechanisms’, including ‘prosecution initiatives, facilitating
initiatives in respect of the right to truth, delivering reparations, institutional reform and national
consultations’. These different elements correspond to certain rights of victims recognized in UN
instruments, such as the right to know (truth-seeking), the
right of access to justice, the right to reparation and guarantees of non-recurrence of violations
(duty of prevention).
The rise of transitional justice has helped to demystify the supposed peace–justice divide and
clarified the justice dimensions of peace processes. It has advocated a holistic approach to justice
and emphasized the centrality of victim’s interests in the quest for a just peace. According to
transitional justice perspectives, the justice within just peace should not be motivated by
considerations of victor’s justice or driven by elites and combatants, but encompass considerations
of restorative justice which recognize the dignity of victims.For instance, many victims and
affected communities can access justice only through informal, local, or traditional institutions.
The broadened approaches towards justice, advocated by transitional justice, are not very
detached from positive conceptions of peace.
Transitional justice scholarship has argued that restoring justice after conflict requires a re-
linking of peace and justice after conflict. It has identified alternatives to the classical liberal trial
model, based on experiences in transitions. They include techniques of memorialization rituals of
truth-telling and reparation to victims. ‘Customs, symbols, ceremonials and rituals’ have been part
of transitional justice ‘alongside formal procedures of global institutions’.
The growth of transitional justice as a field, and possibly even as an industry, has led to a certain
judicialization of peace. The human-rights based orientation of peacebuilding and the mission to
combat impunity has made the legal context of peace agreements more complex. The very process
of negotiating peace is subject to increasing legal constraints. The UN has set strict ‘normative
boundaries’ for its own engagement in peace processes. It specified that it ‘will neither establish
nor provide assistance to any tribunal that allows for capital punishment, nor endorse provisions in
peace agreements that include amnesties for genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity, and
gross violations of human rights’. However, many transitional justice measures go beyond a
backwards-looking or rights-based perspective and illustrate the limits of law in the pursuit of
justice.
Discourses on transitional justice have in particular stressed the importance of reconciliation in
peace processes. The aim of promoting social reconciliation has only received limited attention in
just war theory or peacebuilding per se. It has partially gained ground in peace theory
through transitional justice experiences. A striking example is Daniel Philpott’s work
on just and unjust peace. He has argued that reconciliation is fundamental to the
establishment of a just peace. He has identified six core elements of reconciliation
that are essential to combine peace and justice in transitional processes: building
socially just institutions and relations between states, political acknowledgement of
wrong, reparations, including consideration of historical injustices, judicial
punishment apology, and forgiveness.
Colleen Murphy has developed a political theory of reconciliation, which views the
promotion of the rule of law, generation of reasonable political trust, and restoration
of support for fundamental capabilities as essential elements of reciprocity and
respect for agency. She has argued that war damages social relationships and that
just pursuit of transformation can only be effected through relational changes. Just
peace is thus about repairing relationships. According to her, broken political
relations and mistrust should be remedied through the promotion of adherence to the
rule of law and respect for the moral agency of others. This type of change creates
hope and acknowledgement.
The recognition of the importance of the relational dimensions in peace processes (i.e.
truth- telling, acknowledgement, mutual respect, and repair of harm) has strong
synergies with sociological and psychological theories of just peace which emphasize
the intersubjective dimensions of peace.
