Peace vs. Justice: A False Dilemma
(International Center for Transitional Justice, May 2011)

Dear colleagues,

Today ICTJ launched a short video about the relationship between peace and justice. ICTJ President David Tolbert and other ICTJ experts speak alongside former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, Ishmael Beah, a former child soldier from Sierra Leone, and human rights activists from Kenya, Indonesia and Colombia on the role of justice in sustaining peace, ensuring non-repetition and reinstating respect for the rule of law.

For a long time, making compromises on justice with powerful perpetrators of mass atrocities has been an integral part of peace negotiations. The immediate concern of ending violence often resulted in amnesties for war crimes and crimes against humanity, sometimes even presenting calls for justice as obstacles to peace.

This ICTJ video describes the marked shift in recent years away from the practice of providing immunity from prosecution to those most responsible for mass atrocity. The video illustrates the growing understanding that the two goals of peace and justice, rather than being exclusive, are mutually reinforcing. Peace, when understood as enduring and long-term peace, goes beyond the immediate goal of ending a conflict and relies on justice and accountability to ensure sustainability. Where mass crimes are not addressed, when the root causes of conflict are not sought out and removed, when victims’ calls for justice are not heard, the danger of violence recurring remains high.

We hope you will take a few minutes to watch the video. And we encourage you to share it with your contacts and to use it as a tool in your discussions about peace negotiations.

You are welcome to share the video with a direct link: http://ictj.org/news/peace-versus-justice-false-dilemma We also welcome you to embed the video on your site.

Please write to my colleague, Clare Garvie, cgarvie@ictj.orgThis e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it if you need assistance.

Regards,

Caitlin Reiger, ICTJ