Exploring the Normative Foundations of Jus Post Bellum

Abstract

The successful transition from armed conflict to peace is one of the greatest challenges of contemporary warfare. It raises moral, legal, and practical problems that are the focus of intense interest across disciplines. The laws and norms of justice that apply to the process of ending war and building peace, or "jus post bellum, " is a central and growing concern. An inquiry into jus post bellum has occupied a significant space in the philosophical study of "just war theory, " but has been sidelined in international law and other fields. This volume thus has a foundational role: to examine the potential merits and criticisms of jus post bellum-not from one disciplinary standpoint, but from the angle of multiple disciplines and perspectives. Jus post bellum has its most traditional and systemic grounding in just war theory. Brian Orend has defined jus post bellum as a natural corollary of jus ad bellum and jus in bello. He writes: It seems, then, that just war theorists must consider the justice not only of the resort to war in the first place, and not only of the conduct within war, once it has begun, but also of the termination phase of the war, in terms of the cessation of hostilities and the move back from war to peace. It seems, in short, that we also need to detail a set of just war norms or rules for what we might call jus post bellum: justice after war.1

Ius post bellum, paz positiva y memoria democrática: Un marco teórico para las políticas de memoria en España

“…Dicho de otro modo, la voluntad de implementación de la paz positiva nos obliga a pensar y a trabajar en un escenario de verdadera superación del conflicto. Ello se debe, principalmente, a la naturaleza del concepto de paz positiva que, como se ha visto, integra muchos más elementos que la mera ausencia de violencia física o directa, pudiendo retomar, en este punto de la argumentación, los principios que dotan de contenido real el marco teórico del ius post bellum (Easterday, 2014), expuestos en síntesis en el apartado 1 de este artículo.…”

“…El concepto de ius post bellum también se puede considerar referido a las normas aplicables al proceso que transcurre entre el final de una dictadura (surgida a su vez de una guerra y regulada por disposiciones bélicas) y el devenir de una sociedad pluralista, que debe aspirar a ser pacífica. Easterday (2014) sintetizó los nueve principios que emanan del ius post bellum, a saber: publicidad, adaptabilidad, proporcionalidad, inclusividad, justicia, contextualismo, perspectiva de género, equidad y sostenibilidad. Este marco normativo entronca de manera natural con el ámbito de la justicia transicional y transformativa y, por ende, con la memoria democrática.…”

Introduction

“…Subsequent works have considered this proposal of principles as a solid basis to develop the content of jus post bellum. 44 From the perspective of international law, Thürer and MacLaren were the first authors to address the issue in 2005. In an article, entitled 'Ius Post Bellum' in Iraq, they analyzed the role of the concept to improve the application of ihl in the occupation and post-occupation period in Iraq.…”

Defining a relationship between transitional justice and jus post bellum: A call and an opportunity for post-conflict justice

“…Although there is a relatively common definition of TJ, despite the debates about the inclusion of democratization or the meaning of ‘transition’, definitions of jus post bellum are arguably few, poor and underdeveloped, and far-reaching (Cryer, 2012: 224; Easterday et al, 2014: 3; Evans, 2009; Rodin, 2008), with ‘a strong divide within and across different disciplines concerning the meaning, use and scope of this concept’ (Stahn, 2008: 231). While TJ is a means to attempting to achieve justice in the aftermath of a history of human rights violations, jus post bellum is similarly concerned with a transition from a condition of violence, a good transition from conflict to peace.…”

“…And so, the attempts at definitions provided for jus post bellum may not at first glance seem conceptually dissimilar in important ways from that of TJ, except for the narrowing scope of a war (and perhaps the even more narrow scope of interstate war), but within the confusion are stark differences that can have real-world consequences. Besides the actual definition is the scope of the term; Easterday et al (2014) contend that ‘It is still unclear whether jus post bellum is a construct, a strand of research, or a sub-discipline of existing paradigms’ (2014: 5). Jus post bellum may deal with ‘one of the greatest challenges of warfare and armed force: the management and restoration of peace after conflict’ (Nollkaemper and Schrijver, 2008: v), but it seemingly remains, despite being part of a long tradition, a concept poorly defined or demarcated beyond these most vague and indistinct statements, both in relation to TJ and simply as a coherent field of inquiry.…”