William A. Schabas

William Schabas

Ramesh Chandra Thakur

Edel Hughes

Rebuilding societies where conflict has occurred is rarely a simple process. Where conflict has been accompanied by gross and systematic violations of human rights, the procedure becomes very controversial. The traditional debate on "transitional justice" sought to balance justice, truth, accountability, peace, and stability. The appearance of impunity for past crimes undermines confidence in new democratic structures and casts doubt upon commitments to human rights. Yet the need to consolidate peace sometimes resulted in reluctance on the part of authorities --both local and international --to confront suspected perpetrators of human rights violations, especially when they are a part of a peace process. Experience in many regions of the world therefore suggested a tradeoff between peace and justice. But that is changing. There is a growing consensus that some forms of justice and accountability are integral to --rather than in tension with --peace and stability. This volume considers whether we are truly going beyond the transitional justice debate. It brings together eminent scholars and practitioners with direct experience in some of the most challenging cases of international justice, and illustrates that justice and accountability remain complex, but not mutually exclusive, ideals.

Beyond Transitional Justice

Atrocities and International Accountability

Michael Ignatieff

Simon Chesterman

United Nations University

This publication is the result of a joint interdisciplinary project of the International Peace Academy and the United Nations University. It focuses on situations when state structures begin to break down or collapse, encompassing a range of crises from states in which basic public services are neglected to the total collapse of governance. It looks at the roles and responsibilities of key actors in the situation in relation to their own populations and the international community, and considers the lessons that can be drawn from a range of countries to develop effective strategies to address such situations.

State Failure and the Crisis of Governance

Making States Work

John English

Andrew Fenton Cooper

This book assesses how international commissions have shaped, and even reshaped, our understanding of international affairs and the international discourse on a wide range of global issues. These issues include the global economic order and the discrepancies in wealth between economies in the North and the South; international security and the utility of nuclear weapons; and environmentalism and the demands of economic growth. More recently, international commissions have examined whether the international community will ever accept the idea that military intervention is a legitimate option when confronted by the possibility of genocide and mass human rights violations against whole populations. The varying experiences and influences of eight separate international commissions are scrutinised: Brandt, Palme, Brundtland, the Commission on Global Governance, Canberra, the World Commission on Dams, the Kosovo Commission and the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty (ICISS). Few scholars and practitioners would suggest that international commissions offer perfect solutions to some of the contemporary problems of their time. But this book offers strong support for the argument that ideas matter as key agents in the evolution of global governance. International commissions can often act as the mechanism that brings ideas and institutions together.

International Commissions and the Power of Ideas

Ramesh Chandra Thakur

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