![]()
1 Just peace
Linking justice to peace
Introduction
The concept of just peace as proposed by Pierre Allan and Alexis Keller implies that it is a unique kind of peace that differs from other types, such as negative peace, positive peace, and stable peace (Allan and Keller 2006a; Allan 2006; Allan and Keller 2006b). The concept of just peace is based on the following assumptions:
1 Peace is just only when it is based on justice, or includes justice in it. Thus, âjust peaceâ is a situation or a process âwhereby peace and justice are reached togetherâ (Allan and Keller 2006b, 195).
2 The parties mutually recognize that the peace agreement is just.
3 Peace is just only when it is not imposed on the sides and it is negotiated and accepted by them willingly, on a voluntary basis. â[Peace] is just, because it is based on conventions that are negotiated and accepted by the partiesâ (Allan and Keller 2006a, 1).
4 The parties accept the peace agreement as regulating their relations in a legitimate way and making them satisfied (Allan 2006, 115). Just peace makes the sides respect their commitments. They do not have any reason or motivation to violate the agreement (Keller 2006, 51).
5 Just peace is a precondition for the durability of peace.
6 A just peace is a requirement when one or both sides ask for it or even make it a condition for conflict resolution.
7 The call for just peace or linking peace to justice implies that peace and justice should live in harmony. At the same time, peace and justice may collide and a growing tension may develop between the two.
(Margalit 2010, 7)
The need to link peace with justice is obvious and desired. However, peace and justice may clash and contradict each other. In such a case the main questions are: How to reconcile between peace and justice and what to do when they clash, so that the two cannot be reconciled? Can peace be justified without being just? Can justice be justified without peace? There are no simple answers to these questions.
The ideas of linking justice with peace emerged in the last decade at the core of the theoretical and empirical literature of conflict resolution and peacemaking, including studies on reconciliation. Looking at the relevant studies in the field indicates that we can differentiate between two basic approaches that refer to the possible links between peace and justice.
The first approach calls for a strong link between justice and peace since issues of justice are considered to be a major cause of conflict, so that justice becomes a foundation for peace. Justice is required and necessary for peace, so that peace cannot be reached without reference to justice. Justice includes procedural and substantive dimensions and both should be included in peacemaking and in the peace agreement.
The second approach has two variants, a Realist and a Liberal version. First, there is a Realist approach to peacemaking that denies any necessary link between justice and peace. Second, the Liberal approach to peacemaking, although it does not negate this link in principle, objects to the absolute conditional demand for such a link because it may prevent peace, especially when justice and peace are not compatible and even confront each other. The insistence on this link may therefore become a barrier to conflict resolution. Hence, those who desire to end conflicts peacefully should be wary of absolute demands about the linkage between justice and peace.
This chapter has several aims. First, to explore the reasons for the demand of linking justice to peace as they are presented in different approaches in the field. Second, to examine the implications for linking justice to peace on peace negotiations, concluding a peace agreement, and its implementation, as well as on the stabilization of a peace agreement, its durability, and the prospects of reconciliation. Third, to explore alternative ways about how to balance the relationship between justice and peace, in order to bring about the completion of a peace agreement as well as to guarantee its durability over the long term.
I organize the discussion in the following order: First, I introduce the concepts of justice and injustice. Second, I discuss the approaches that endorse an explicit link between justice and peace. Third, I present the approaches that oppose linking justice with peace. Fourth, I examine different ideas about how to balance between justice and peace when the two concepts clash and contradict each other. Finally, I suggest linking justice to reconciliation instead of peacemaking because justice, although intrinsically related to reconciliation, is not essential to the earlier stages of conflict resolution, and the insistence of including justice in it becomes a barrier to reaching peace in the first place.
What is there between justice and injustice?
Justice is the quality of being just; the quality of being correct or right; righteousness, equitableness, or moral rightness; upholding the justice of a cause; the moral principle determining just conduct; fair representation of facts; vindictive retribution; conformity to right relationships; making things right; honesty; impartiality; rectifying the wrong; restitution; and fairness (the definitions are taken from Rh Value Publishing 1994, 776, 993; Lederach 1997, 28).
Justice and truth are the first virtues of human activities, as natural characteristics of human interactions. Justice is nevertheless a âcontested concept,â that is, not necessarily a universal, objective, and agreed concept, but a subjective and relative one, which has different understandings, interpretations, and applications (Gallie 1955â56; Garver 1987; Swanton 1985). As a contested concept, justice involves endless disputes about its proper uses on the part of its users, and these disputes âcannot be settled by appeal to empirical evidence, linguistic usage, or the canons of logic alone.â Moreover, such disputes are âperfectly genuine,â ânot resolvable by argument,â and ânevertheless sustained by perfectly respectable arguments and evidenceâ (Gallie 1955â56, 169; see also Gray 1977, 344). Indeed, the question of justice arises only where there are competing interests or competing claims. Each party tends âto defend its case with what it claims to be convincing arguments, evidence and other forms of justificationâ (Gallie 1955â56, 168).
Because of its contested characteristics we need a shared conception of justice, or at least some measure of agreement about its meanings and applications in order to cooperate among individuals and societies. The value and the procedures that define justice may develop by negotiations among the conflicting parties. In the absence of an agreement or shared understanding on what is just and unjust, individuals and societies will fail not only to cooperate, or to coordinate effectively their interaction, but will find themselves in a conflict situation (Deutsch 1985, 6â9; Rawls 1999a, 3â11).
The conceptualizations of justice are influenced by the specific context and situation, and by the interpretations and expectations in the initial situation. There are many interpretations of what a just situation is. Therefore, there is a need to formulate the criteria to identify what sort of situations can be defined as just or unjust (Rawls 1999a, 14 and 47; Campbell 2000). For instance, justice generally refers to a certain distribution of goods (distributive justice), and the way such distribution is effected (procedural justice). The relationship between the kind and the procedure of the distribution links justice with fairness or, in Rawlsâs terms, âjustice as fairness.â The principles of justice are then the result of a fair agreement or bargaining. Justice as fairness âconveys the idea that the principles of justice are agreed to in an initial situation that is fairâ (Rawls 1999a, 11).
Justice requires the recognition of certain basic needs. The notion of needs tends to be controversial when it is culturally defined and when needs are converted into rights, imposing demands on other people. Therefore, the sense of âabsolute needs or rightsâ ignores the differences in needs and rights between different people and different cultures (Solomon 1995, 187â93).
Although Rawls in his Theory of Justice applies the idea of justice mainly to individuals within a given society, in his book The Law of Peoples he extends his conceptions of right and justice to the relations between constitutional liberal democracies. These peoples are peculiar in that âtheir basic needs are met and their fundamental interests are fully compatible with those of other democratic peoples. There is a true peace among them because all societies are satisfied with status quo for the right reasonsâ (Rawls 1999b, 3).1
The major principles of The Law of Peoples, which are roughly similar to those enshrined by international law include the following:
1 Peoples are free and independent, and their freedom and independence are to be respected by other peoples.
2 Peoples are to observe treaties and undertakings.
3 Peoples are equal and are parties to the agreements that bind them.
4 Peoples are to observe a duty of non-intervention.
5 Peoples have the right of self-defense but no right to instigate war for reasons other than self-defense.
6 Peoples have to honor human rights.
7 Peoples are to observe certain specified restrictions in the conduct of war.
8 Peoples have a duty to assist other peoples living under unfavorable conditions that prevent them from having a just or decent political and social regime (according to Rawls, this principle is especially controversial).
(Rawls 1999b, 37)
All these principles must satisfy the criterion of reciprocity (Rawls 1999b, 41). In this context, Rawls maintains that the demands of distributive justice do not apply to the society of peoples (i.e. the international society). In his own words, âinequalities are not always unjust, and that when they are, it is because of their unjust effects on the basic structure of the Society of Peoples, and on relations among peoples and their membersâ (Rawls 1999b, 113).
Injustice is the quality or fact of being unjust; inequality; violations of rights of others; unjust or unfair action or treatment; an unjust act; a wrong; and unfairness (defined in Rh Value Publishing 1994, 733). People develop a sense of injustice when they have been wronged, or when they feel that they are denied promised benefits, or when they do not get what they believe that they deserve, or when they are deprived of their rights and needs.
The sense of injustice may develop as âa reaction to a perceived discrepancy between entitlements and benefitsâ (Lerner 1981, 12â13). In other words, a perceived discrepancy develops between what an individual obtains and what he or she is entitled to obtain. The greater the extent of relative deprivation the more intense will be the sense of injustice. âThe intensity of the sense of injustice is also undoubtedly influenced by the prior experience and future anticipation of relative deprivationâ (Deutsch 1985, 51).
Peopleâs feelings of injustice are not only a function of their objective situation, but also a result of psychological factors (Solomon 1995, 4â6, 30â33, 187â91; Deutsch 2000, 41â52). Awareness of the injustice consists of a constellation of feelings and is cultivated mainly from negative emotions such as outrage, anger, indignation, envy, resentment, depression, disappointment, humiliation, vengeance, a sense of helplessness, and all other passions that people feel when they have been deprived of their rights and basic needs. People are likely to feel humiliated both by the circumstances of the situation and by the inability to change it. Nevertheless, people may also develop in this adverse situation positive emotions such as self-esteem, a sense of power, and pride when they act to eliminate injustice and to correct it.
In a complex and often conflicting set of feelings that vary within the context of alternative normative judgments, justice âis not simply an application of a clearly defined, already established and internalized set of rational principlesâ (Solomon 1995, 172). When people feel that they are in an unjust situation they might develop a strong justice motive to correct it. This justice motive is defined as âthe drive to correct a perceived discrepancy between entitlements and benefitsâ (Welch 1993, 20). For the justice motive to lead to an action, whether or not those perceptions are accurate is entirely a non-relevant issue. Even an unfounded perception may trigger the justice motive. The justice motive can move people to âextremes of self-sacrifice in order to promote justiceâ; sometimes they act even âout of raw-interestâ regardless of the inherent costs to themselves (Lerner 1981, 13). Perceived claims of justice and injustice will focus on the satisfaction of these claims, even at the cost of the exclusion of other concerns, which might sometimes be even more crucial and immediate.
Welch mentions that the sense of injustice and the motive to correct it differs from an aversion of losses or securing gains in three significant aspects. First, it triggers a unique emotional response, which contains a powerful passion that increases the stridency of demands, amplifying intransigence, reducing sensitivity to threats and value-tradeoffs, and increasing the willingness to take risks including those of violence. Second, it differs prescriptively in terms of behavior. Third, it tends to be categorical and deontological rather than utilitarian; thus, nothing short of full satisfaction is accepted (Welch 1993, 20).
When people believe themselves wronged, they see this as the sole responsibility of others. They tend to see themselves as victims of inju...
