Just and Unjust Peace

Winner of the 2013 Christianity Today Book Award in Missions / Global AffairsWinner of the Aldersgate Prize Honorable MentionWinner of the 2014 International Studies Association International Ethics Section Book AwardIn 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 moreholistic, 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 ofjustice, 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 toreal 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.

Winner of the International Studies Association's Best Book Award in the International Ethics Section, Just and Unjust Peace is an important guide for responsible action in the wake of massive violations of justice., Just and Unjust Peace is a book of optimism, of hope, of insistently seeing the glass as half full. Humane but not fatuous or sappy, it is the exit ramp off Apocalypse Highway. One wants Philpott to be right, and wishes him the best in his peacemaking efforts. We should feel grateful that there are people like him willing to take on such hard, frustrating, unglamorous work." - The New Republic, How can a society construct a better political future from the welter of claims and emotions that attend any effort to deal with past injustices? Everyone concerned with the dilemmas of peace-building will find a treasure trove of ideas and encouragement in Daniel Philpott's Just and Unjust Peace.", Daniel Philpott's book, Just and Unjust Peace, can be regarded as a milestone for policymakers and academics looking for ways that go beyond the liberal peace frameworks.

Daniel Philpott is Associate Professor of Political Science and Peace Studies at the University of Notre Dame, where he is affiliated with the Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies. His books include Revolutions in Sovereignty, God's Century, The Politics of Past Evil, and Strategies of Peace.