edinburgh university press the ethics of peacebuilding mar 2009

THE ETHICS OF PEACEBUILDING ‘I can’t imagine a more important topic for our times than that of learning how to facilitate sustainable peace through healing reconciliation based upon a foundation of ethically informed restorative as well as social/ economic justice.’ Professor William Aiken, Chatham College, Pittsburgh This book explores the ethical dimension of peacebuilding. In the aftermath of the Cold War the hope for a more stable and just international order was rapidly dissolved by the internecine conflicts that plagued all continents. The Rwanda and Srebrenica genocides demonstrated the challenge of promoting peace in a world increasingly defined by intra-state conflict and sub-national groups confronting nation-states. Tim Murithi interrogates the role that ethics plays in promoting and consolidating peacebuilding and presents a synthesis of moral philosophy and international relations and an analysis of the ethics of negotiation, mediation, forgiveness and reconciliation. Exploring the extent to which ethical concerns influence and inform peacebuilding, he contributes to a growing body of literature on ethics and international relations which will enable students, scholars and practitioners to ground their understanding of a principled peacebuilding. KEY FEATURES • Author has first-hand knowledge of peacebuilding through his work with the UN and NGOs • Analyses the ethics of peacebuilding inherent in the actions of the inter- governmental and non-governmental organisations • Examines the ethics of negotiation, mediation, forgiveness and reconciliation • Draws on a wide range of historical and contemporary case studies including the League of Nations, the United Nations, the Quakers in the Biafran War and the South African and Sierra Leonean Truth Commissions TIM MURITHI is a Senior Research Fellow with the Centre for International Cooperation and Security (CICS) at the University of Bradford. He is the author of The African Union: Pan-Africanism, Peacebuilding and Development (2005), Towards a Union Government for Africa: Challenges and Opportunities (2008) and co-editor of The African Union and its Institutions (2008). EDINBURGH STUDIES IN WORLD ETHICS Series Editor: Nigel Dower Edinburgh Studies in World Ethics Tim Murithi THE ETHICS OF PEACEBUILDING Tim MurithiEdinburgh Edinburgh Cover design concept: Fionna Robson Edinburgh University Press 22 George Square, Edinburgh EH8 9LF www.eup.ed.ac.uk ISBN 978 0 7486 2448 5 THE ETHICS OF PEACEBUILDING Timothy Murithi 8127 Muritihi:8127 Muritihi 18/4/08 12:58 Page 1 THE ETHICS OF PEACEBUILDING EDINBURGH STUDIES IN WORLD ETHICS Other titles in the series: The Ethics of Peace and War Iain Atack The Ethics of the Global Environment Robin Attfield Ethics, Economics and International Relations Second Edition Peter G. Brown World Ethics: The New Agenda Second Edition Nigel Dower The Ethics of Development Des Gasper THE ETHICS OF PEACEBUILDING Tim Murithi EDINBURGH UNIVERSITY PRESS For Bonnie Tim Murithi, 2009 Edinburgh University Press Ltd 22 George Square, Edinburgh www.euppublishing.com Typeset in Times by Iolaire Typesetting, Newtonmore, and printed and bound in Great Britain by CPI Antony Rowe Ltd, Chippenham, Wilts A CIP record for this book is available from the British Library ISBN 978 0 7486 2447 8 (hardback) ISBN 978 0 7486 2448 5 (paperback) The right of Tim Murithi to be identified as author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. CONTENTS Acknowledgements vii Preface ix 1 Introduction 1 2 Moral Knowledge and Peacebuilding 13 3 The Morality of Conflict Resolution: A Critique of the State System and its Management of Sub-national Conflict 42 4 The Utility of Negotiation and Mediation 71 5 The Virtue of Forgiveness 113 6 The Value of Reconciliation 136 7 Towards an Agenda for Ethical Peacebuilding 160 8 Conclusion 181 Index 187 [...]... from which to understand the contemporary challenges of peacebuilding The purpose of this book, therefore, is to contribute towards the growth of knowledge on the ethics of peacebuilding This will indirectly contribute towards developing an understanding of the ethics of international relations However, prior to engaging further in a discussion of the ethical dimension of peacebuilding, we first need... World Ethics: The New Agenda and Iain Atack’s The Ethics of Peace and War.1 However, additional research is required on the ethics of peacebuilding and conflict resolution As Bruce Barry and Robert Robinson note, there is ‘a relative dearth of scholarly attention to the wider field of ethics in conflict resolution’.2 Furthermore, they argue that it is important to ‘identify the ethical dimensions of relationships... context, therefore, when we talk about peacebuilding we are referring to the process whereby the goal is to strengthen the capacity of societies to promote positive peace Within most of the peacebuilding and development actors and agencies there is increasingly a focus on the importance of promoting positive peace Among these actors, in the last decade we have witnessed a resurgence of the role of civil... also assess the efforts of the ˚ League to promote peace in the Aland Islands, Upper Silesia and the Saar region It will then assess the United Nations’ framework for resolving conflict and the objectives of the Mediation Support Unit within the UN Department of Political Affairs (DPA) It will go on to assess the peacebuilding efforts of the Quakers during the Biafran war in Nigeria in the late 1960s... discuss the challenges of translating micro- and meso-level peacebuilding to the level of international relations or the macro-level In particular, it will discuss the promotion of peacebuilding as a challenge to global governance Chapter 4 will assess the processes of negotiation and mediation in order to illustrate the ethics inherent in both processes It will assess the efforts of the League of Nations... established to enhance peacebuilding This book proposes to assess the ethical dimensions of negotiation, mediation, forgiveness and reconciliation in order to provide insights into some of the components of peacebuilding There has been a substantial body of literature that has been developed to explore the morality of war There has also been a significant amount of literature on the ethics of peace, including... factor to the limited success that has been experienced in consolidating peace The ethical dimensions of the practical peacebuilding adopted in this book will therefore make an innovative contribution to the literature 12 t h e et h ic s of pe ac e bu i l di ng NOTES 1 Nigel Dower, World Ethics: A New Agenda, 2nd edition (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2007); Iain Atack, The Ethics of Peace... discourse ethics will be ¨ assessed to reiterate this point The argument for the importance of knowledge serving an emancipatory function is central to the critical theory school of international relations Peace is therefore valued and is being explicitly argued for in the formulation of bodies of knowledge This chapter seeks to set out the basis upon which the case can be made for the intrinsic value of peacebuilding. .. The twentieth century witnessed some of the worst war atrocities committed in the history of humanity This included the genocide in Armenia, the Holocaust and the wanton carnage of the Second World War The Cold War retained this pattern of destruction with proxy wars being fought along the East/West or Soviet/US ideological divide In the aftermath of the Cold War the hope for a more stable and just international... address them Chapter 7 will also assess the role of international institutions in promoting peacebuilding In particular, it will assess the newly established UN Peacebuilding Commission and question whether it will fulfil the objective of promoting ethical peace around the world Chapter 7 will also assess the importance of a post-conflict democratisation process that re-defines the nature of the relationship . Page 1 THE ETHICS OF PEACEBUILDING EDINBURGH STUDIES IN WORLD ETHICS Other titles in the series: The Ethics of Peace and War Iain Atack The Ethics of the Global Environment Robin Attfield Ethics, . Brown World Ethics: The New Agenda Second Edition Nigel Dower The Ethics of Development Des Gasper THE ETHICS OF PEACEBUILDING Tim Murithi EDINBURGH UNIVERSITY PRESS For Bonnie Tim Murithi, 2009 Edinburgh. principled peacebuilding. KEY FEATURES • Author has first-hand knowledge of peacebuilding through his work with the UN and NGOs • Analyses the ethics of peacebuilding inherent in the actions of the