Need for Peace versus Hopes for Justice in Post-Conflict Moment - Essay Example

Need for Peace versus Hopes for Justice in Post-Conflict Moment In a post-conflict situation, elements of peace building and justice seeking remain prevalent. Practically, peace building starts within the negotiation tables when conflicting parties explicitly deliberate on issues that provoked violence, and resolve to halt any form of violence in a mutually consensus manner. Often, the need for peace demands compromises that serve the purpose of taming hostilities between disagreeing parties. Technically, compromises are part of settlement measures used in securing interests of distinct conflicting parties.

Objective justice does not usually mix with peace building immediately during a post conflict moment. The quest for justice demands objective punishment of all perpetrators of violence. Contrarily, peace building necessitates disregard of unjust instances of a conflict in order to avoid re-igniting tension between disagreeing parties. Apparently, the need for peace and the quest for justice should not be addressed concurrently, unless mediators tiptoe carefully in deliberating on both concepts in a post conflict moment.

Undeniably, peace and justice are conflicting concepts in a post conflict moment. In conflict management, peace and justice hardly co-exist together. In practical contexts, conflict suspension uses peace as an input at the expense of justice. At this juncture, it is worth acknowledging that peace is merely a means of ceasing and subsequently halting violence. However, justice is a mechanism used in building sustainable positive relationships between conflicting parties. In this case, the need for peace is a short term strategy while the quest for justice is a long term strategy in conflict management.

Need for peace is a single element in the molecule of backward-looking negotiations. Peace building seeks to subdue current violence by resolving past and present differences. On the other hand, justice is a component of forward-looking negotiations. Justice seeks to prevent future conflicts by accountably administering punitive actions to perpetrators of past and present violence. Admittedly, peace building and quest for justice may not occur concurrently in a post conflict-moment. Principals of conflict management are forced to prioritize either peace at the expense of justice or vice versa.

Dangers of prioritizing peace at the expense of justice may be unprecedented. For example, Armenia and Azerbaijan had recurrent conflicts in the late 1980s. In an effort to suppress the recurrent violence, Soviet Union mediated mutually beneficial agreements and compromises between Armenia and Azerbaijan. Undeniably, the Soviet-led mediation suppressed the conflict for awhile. In 1990, incompatibilities between Armenia and Azerbaijan heightened to an all time high. Subsequently, violence between the two nations broke out, leading to massacre of twenty-five thousand people and half-a-million displacements.

The international community, led by the United Nations, accused the Soviet Union of taming a potentially dangerous monster with peace, instead of administering justice to ensure future positive relationships. Actually, hopes for justice in a post-conflict moment are impeded by potential displeasures from prosecution of war lords. Most conflicts like the Mozambique and Nagorno-Karabakh war continued for a long time because mediators of the conflict prematurely introduced justice during negotiations.

In conflict management, hopes for justice must be suspended until the post-settlement period. However, justice must not be delayed longer because doing so will erode resolutions made during the cease-fire period. Technically, need for peace and hopes for justice are intertwined necessities in a post-conflict moment. Immediately after a conflict, peace building proves effective in suspension of killings and mass displacement of populations. On the other hand, justice brings about accountability and melts the iced barrier of impunity and villainy between conflicting parties.

In post-conflict moments, peace and justice are rarely achievable in a simultaneous manner. However, timely prescription of peace building and quests for justice is an effective long term conflict management strategy. Work Cited Kremenyuk, Victor and Zartman, William. Peace versus Justice: Negotiating Forward and Backward-Looking Outcomes. New York: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc., 2010. Print.