When states are attempting to recover from periods of serious human rights abuse, they often must try to reconcile the competing demands of different stakeholders. These demands may range from claims that complete impunity is a necessary sacrifice to achieve peace, to the belief that without justice no meaningful peace can be reached. This paper will attempt to highlight the ways in which international courts and quasi-judicial bodies address the dilemma of peace versus justice, in relation to amnesty laws. The discussion will consider the main international standards on impunity, the international jurisprudence relating to amnesties and whether international courts should recognize amnesties that are accompanied by alternative forms of justice. This paper will argue that international courts should recognize amnesties that are introduced with democratic approval to promote peace and reconciliation, provided that they are accompanied by mechanisms to fulfil the victims' rights.

Despite the much vaunted triumph of human rights, amnesties continue to be a frequently used technique of post‐conflict transitional justice. For many critics, they are synonymous with unaccountability and injustice. This article argues that despite the rhetoric, there is no universal duty to prosecute under international law and that issues of selectivity and proportionality present serious challenges to the retributive rationale for punishment in international justice. It contends that many of the assumptions concerning the deterrent effect in the field are also oversold and poorly theorized. It also suggests that appropriately designed restorative amnesties can be both lawful and effective as routes to truth recovery, reconciliation, and a range of other peacemaking goals. Rather than mere instruments of impunity, amnesties should instead be seen as important institutions in the governance of mercy, the reassertion of state sovereignty and, if properly constituted, the return of law to a previously lawless domain.

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Stormont House Agreement (2014) Paragraph 21. 'As part of the transition to long-term peace and stability the participants agree that an approach to dealing with the past is necessary which respects the following principles: promoting reconciliation; upholding the rule of law; acknowledging and addressing the suffering of victims and survivors; facilitating the pursuit of justice and information recovery; is human rights compliant; and is balanced, proportionate, transparent, fair and equitable.' 6 NOTE ON TERMINOLOGY As ever in the Northern Ireland context, disputes on terminology can arise. Our focus herein is on providing accessible legal and policy analysis, using clear and unambiguous terms to help readers make up their own mind on these complex and sensitive matters. The conflict, sometimes referred to as the Troubles, refers to actions concerning the constitutional status of Northern Ireland by republican paramilitaries, loyalist paramilitaries, the security forces (in Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland) and others from 1966 onwards.

It is widely acknowledged that during the last decades of the twentieth century, the engagement of states with international human rights norms underwent a significant transformation. 3 Evidence for this can be seen in states" involvement in the creation of new human rights institutions and international treaties. For example, with the entry into force of human rights instruments such as Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (in 1976) 4 and the American Convention on Human Rights (in 1978), 5 participating nation states empowered human rights monitoring institutions to investigate individual complaints of state responsibility for human rights violations, even when the complaints were made by their own citizens. In addition, through the agreement of treaties such as the Convention against Torture, 6 states created new transnational offences that state parties were obliged to prevent and punish. Furthermore, in addition to submitting themselves