Will Peace Last Without Justice?

categories: Darfur & Sudan, Peace & Justice

Published July 14, 2009 @ 04:26PM PT

Former UN Humanitarian Coordinator for Sudan Dr. Mukesh Kapila has a rather inflammatory piece on the UN Watch website, in which he delivers a bit of a tongue-lashing to the humanitarian community for its opposition to the International Criminal Court (ICC) arrest warrant for Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir.

(Vaguely reminiscent, as you may recall, of a heated debate that recently rumbled through the virtual corridors of Change.org.)

The post, "Seven Excuses for Inaction in Darfur," is at times hostile and prone to oversimplification (granted, it's transcribed from panel remarks and not an exhaustive study), but also makes several very interesting points regarding "progressive revisionism of Darfuri history" and the need to weigh short-term humanitarian interventions against longer-term, more political efforts to address the root causes of such need.

The last section of the post also makes a bold statement about peace and justice:

"This we know from history, from all the examples of every single peace agreement that we can be conscious of over the last years. Not a single peace agreement has ever succeeded unless there has been a foundation addressing the issue of accountability."

Is it true? Have peace agreements historically shown to be unsustainable without provisions for accountability for egregious transgressions of human rights? Can anyone contradict Dr. Kapila and cite an example of a negotiated peace agreement that did not include any sort of accountability measure?

Sounds like the makings of a PhD dissertation. Who's game?

[Photo from AFP: Sudanese women carrying sacks of relief food in Boro Medina, in south Sudan, in 2008.]

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Comments (2)

I submit the Brioni Declaration, which ended the Slovenian Independence War, as an example of a peace agreement without an accountability measure.

http://www.pcr.uu.se/gpdatabase/peace/Yug%2019910712.pdf

Posted by Karl Horberg on 07/15/2009 @ 05:29PM PT
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Under review, will get back to you. (You may have noticed, I'm rather slow when it comes to responding to people.)

Posted by Michelle . on 07/16/2009 @ 04:49PM PT
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Michelle became involved in the anti-genocide cause at a young age, and has been involved in various activist endeavors, including the Teach Against Genocide pilot campaigns, ever since.