Just and Unjust Peace: An Ethic of Political Reconciliation

by Daniel Philpott

In the wake of massive injustice, how can justice be achieved and peace restored? Is it possible to find a universal standard that will work for people of diverse and often conflicting religious, cultural, and philosophical backgrounds?

In Just and Unjust Peace, Daniel Philpott offers an innovative and hopeful response to these questions. He challenges the approach to peace-building that dominates the United Nations, western governments, and the human rights community. While he shares their commitments to human rights and democracy, Philpott argues that these values alone cannot redress the wounds caused by war, genocide, and dictatorship. Both justice and the effective restoration of political order call for a more holistic, restorative approach. Philpott answers that call by proposing a form of political reconciliation that is deeply rooted in three religious traditions - Christianity, Islam, and Judaism - as well as the restorative justice movement. These traditions offer the fullest expressions of the core concepts of justice, mercy, and peace. By adapting these ancient concepts to modern constitutional democracy and international norms, Philpott crafts an ethic that has widespread appeal and offers real hope for the restoration of justice in fractured communities. From the roots of these traditions, Philpott develops six practices - building just institutions and relations between states, acknowledgment, reparations, restorative punishment, apology and, most important, forgiveness - which he then applies to real cases, identifying how each practice redresses a unique set of wounds.

Focusing on places as varied as Bosnia, Iraq, South Africa, Germany, Sierra Leone, Timor-Leste, Chile and many others - and drawing upon the actual experience of victims and perpetrators - Just and Unjust Peace offers a fresh approach to the age-old problem of restoring justice in the aftermath of widespread injustice.

Genres: Politics, Nonfiction, Political Science, Philosophy

352 pages, Hardcover

First published April 28, 2012

Reviews

[Ava Drosos · Rating 4 out of 5]

Highly recommend reading in conjunction with “Just and Unjust Wars” by Michael Walzer, the two together give a more well rounded view than if read alone. If you’re looking to better understand the moral and ethical implications surrounding global conflicts I would definitely give these a read.

[Jeffrey Hart · Rating 3 out of 5]

The author of this book is attempting to argue for an ethic of political reconciliation. “Reconciliation…tells us who ought to do what to whom, for whom and on behalf of whom and the reasons why.” (p. 5) Six practices are associated with it: building socially just institutions and relations between states, acknowledgement, reparations, punishment, apology, and forgiveness. Reconciliation represents a kind of restorative justice more associated with the beliefs of major religions rather than secular notions such as the rights-based justice put forward by liberal theorists. The ethic of reconciliation is a response to evil that, according to the author, looks backward and forward at the same time. The ultimate goal is to establish the basis for a future that is genuinely just and therefore peaceful.